churchgoing

You Know, Just Talking to God
As of late, I have been talking to God. I have been complaining to God. I have been wondering if religion is much like golf. One summer afternoon when I was a teenager I John McEnroe’d my putter into the green and screamed “This isn’t fun!” My dad replied, “Mary Katherine, golf isn’t supposed to…

The Body of Christ, Now Germ-Free
Wired reports on the brewing intellectual property war over hygienic churchware: A Minnesota marketer of communion-wafer dispensers is accusing its former president of patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. (.pdf) … The handheld devices allow the dispensing of wafers without being touched by anybody but those receiving them. What’s more, the portable devices, according…

Liquid Faith
Down the road from the Smucker’s factory, a new religion emerges in the living rooms of Latinos in America.

Lips Moved by an Angel’s Hands
Correction: This post is premised on an incorrect interpretation of the work in question. Refer to Lisa Levy‘s comment below and my response to it. Finally, on my third attempt—not counting two extra false starts—I made it by bicycle, with six friends, to see the Chagall and Matisse stained glass windows at the Rockefellers’ Union…

Language the Soul Speaks
This just arrived from reader Kate: Thanks to Ms. Markey and to your blog for publishing “Religious Education.” I read this article at work and wept in my cubicle. You’ve struck something very tender and complicated and true. I stopped going to Mass ten years ago because the Catholic church no longer fit me somehow—I…

One Variety of Impiety
There are lots of ways of being disrespectful during church, especially if the church is Catholic. The rules are a lot easier at your average megachurch, where shorts, t-shirts, and Starbucks are as welcome as Bibles. Basically, there, whatever’s clean and decent outside is good also for glorifying the nondenominational, American Protestant God. But Catholic…

Attention Friends and Neighbors!
Making my merry way to breakfast past Fulton Street in Brooklyn this morning, the LORD raised up a mighty crowd in my path. They bore yellow balloons, wide smiles, and full-color fliers at the ready. The occasion? To announce the Grand Inauguration of the Cathedral of Faith tomorrow at 1091 Fulton. On the flyer is…