clippings

[bronze_ribbons]

I was already fond of the name "Michaela." Now I have another reason to use it the next time I have a kickass female character to name:
Alaskan girl first to win state wrestling title competing with boys.

Blessing the Fallen and Those Left Behind by Andrew Jacobs -- an article by Andrew Jacobs on the NYPD chaplains, which include

the Rev. Luis Serrano, a Hispanic Pentecostal minister, the Rev. Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook, a black Baptist and the first female chaplain, and Iman Izak-El Mu'eed Pasha, the unit's first Muslim religious figure who recently retired. (His replacement is being sought)

as well as a Catholic priest (the Rev. Robert Romano) and the chaplain-in-chief, Rabbi Alvin Kass:

With four decades on the force, Rabbi Kass is almost as recognizable around police headquarters as his boss, Commissioner Kelly. He is also a frequent presence at churches, mosques and Hindu temples. "If there was an entry in Guinness Book of World Records for the rabbi who attended the most Catholic Masses, I would win hands down," he said with a boyish grin.

Rabbi Kass has had a colorful run: there were the death threats that earned his family months of round-the-clock security and a starring role in a hostage crisis that was resolved with a pastrami sandwich. Rabbi Kass persuaded the self-identified Jewish hostage-taker to exchange his guns for two Carnegie Deli sandwiches.

On a more local to LJ level, I noticed this morning that a friend had written about her plans to mortify her son a decade or two from now:

You know that we are going to use the 5000+ digital photos and the carefully hoarded anecdotes at the bar mitzvah and the wedding or other committment ceremony.

This brought tears to my eyes, because I don't know how many people would have so readily acknowledged multiple possibilities with such matter-of-fact elan, and definitely not twenty years ago. I like that I am connected to people like this, and I like that I can also dream, "Perhaps twenty years from now we will call them all weddings," and that the New York Times reporting of single-sex unions is now routine, and that there are kids who won't have known it to be any different.

---

All of this gives me hope, and that's good, since (on a far more mundane note), I have a sermon to write for this Sunday. It being Lincoln's birthday, I've titled it "Lovers of the Republic: Lincoln's Admirers and Their Legacies."


On the 197th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, our service will visit the work of some of his Unitarian and Universalist contemporaries, including Julia Ward Howe (author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," Clara Barton (founder of the Red Cross), and activist minister Theodore Parker (whose congregants included Louisa May Alcott and William Lloyd Garrison). We will also take a look at excerpts from the writings of Walt Whitman and consider the challenges of sustaining "the breath recuperative of sane and heroic life" as citizens of this nation.

Comments

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

I like that I can also dream, "Perhaps twenty years from now we will call them all weddings," and that the New York Times reporting of single-sex unions is now routine, and that there are kids who won't have known it to be any different.

From your mouth to God's ear.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

Rabbi Kass

...that phrase caught my eye and made me blink. Which is kind of funny, given that a) I'm not ordained and am years away from it yet, and b) Kass isn't my RL name. *g*

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Ja, that caught my eye as well. :-)

As you may know, I have zero personal interest in becoming a pastor... but I couldn't resist checking out the page for The Massachusetts Corps of Police Chaplains (http://www.masspolicechaplains.com/). Fascinating...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

When porphyrin and Mike talk about their 3-year-old son's future, they say things like "if he decides to bring home some nice person or people." It is Good.