TAKING A SECOND LOOK, ON SEPTEMBER 14

SNEAKING GOD INTO THE US POST OFFICE....!

We can be sure the United States Postal service is not religion-based, because of the constitutional separation of church and state. But can we be sure about the US Postal artist....?

I raise the question only after studying the last several year's of celebrity postage stamps. They feature famous people from various walks of life. But always in their very best and most attractive persona's. Take the latest series of Hollywood stamps -- Bette Davis, Bob Hope and now Gary Cooper. While we may not know much about the private lives of the non-Hollywood celebrities, we sure do about the stars. I mean, that's why God created the paparazzi and the gossip papers!

Now here's where religion sneaks into these stamps. Subtly and constitutionally safely, to be sure; but religion nevertheless. Just notice how the artist sees these heroes without any hint of failure or flaw. Bette without her brawling record of cat-fights and studio intrigue...Bob without his celebrated womanizing on the USO road...Gary without his reputed trysts and boozing.

The way I understand God and religion, at the end of our lives He will judge us with as much mercy as justice. And so He is likely to see us in the same favorable light the US Postal artist does. At our smiling best, sans worries sans warts maybe even sans sins.

This opinion probably carries little theological weight with any of the world's great religions. And yet, don't these same religions all have a way of reassuring us something better awaits us after this life....? And that the good we do here will help us in our journey there....? And also that whatever and wherever there is, we will arrive looking and being our very best....?

I tried to find out who the artist is, but couldn't. However, the way I figure it, some mystery is always to be expected whenever it comes to there.....

EINSTEIN VERSUS HALLMARK......!

If you're like most people, you try to keep up with what's new in the world of science. We live and thrive in an age where modern science has created cures and technologies that would have baffled the great kings and philosophers of the past. And yet, could it be that the very wonder of these works has shut off another kind of wonder? The wonder of simply wonder itself....
In their dazzling dedication to decode our humanity, evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins continue to explain how various genes and brain circuits help trigger and explain our everyday behaviors. Behaviors ranging from which body sweat activates what we call hate or love....to which evolved DNA makes us worriers or warriors....to which genes incline us to believe or not to believe in divinity.

Knowledge like this is power, and the power of these neuro-biological discoveries is opening important new frontiers to us. And yet, have you ever looked up at a gathering thunderstorm on a summer day or studied the peculiar flights of clouds across the face of a harvest moon and wondered to yourself like the ancients did....? Wondered whether there were mysterious messages and messengers involved....?

The science of climatology on our 10 PM news tells us there are no mysteries up there -- only wind currents, cumulus formations and other physical forces that we can now chart, graph and use to predict. Terrific! Especially when the predictions happen to work out. (Statistically speaking in the northern hemisphere about 56% of the time). Still, the funny thing is even on the statistically correct days, I occasionally receive a gushy Hallmark Card in the mail. As I open it, I can't help contrast the science of weather forecasting out there with the sentiment of someone's caring in my hand. A cosmic difference -- but then that's just me.

Good to understand my world. Even more so to feel the thoughts of those in my world who care about me. I suspect my sentimental preferences here are one big reason why I never got an A in biology....!