SMITCHing

Wow. Stanford. My daughter just found out she was accepted to the undergrad program, class of 2011.

Entertaining Church As a kid, I found the circus, a parade, an episode of Monty Python, or even a half-chewed hunk of bubble gum more captivating than church. A lot has changed since then. If anything, the various ways we can amuse ourselves has grown expotentially. And "church" has worked hard to keep from losing ground. More's the pity. Whatever its failings, church used to be church. Distinct from other institutions. Mysterious and, yes, awe-inspiring. Even as the afore-mentioned distracted kid, I can remember gingerly entering a church with a sense of reverence. It was a congregation that still practiced high liturgy, and the feeling came from the church. Not my parents or anyone else. My dad was an agnostic who used to joke that he made it through a liturgical service (or any other for that matter) by counting ceiling tiles. Mom was too busy wrangling four wriggling boys to display even a modicum of reverence. So where did the feeling come from? It came from a sense ...