True Ancestor

To God, from Timmy

Two letters -- postcards, really -- to God, that I saw posted on a bulletin board at Gabe's school* (names changed to protect the young):

Dear God:

I love how you get all the stars in just the right places, every night.

Yours,
Timmy


_____

Dear God:

It's amazing that you can love everyone all the time. There are only 4 people in my family, and I still can't do it.

Love,
Rachel.

--T.A.

* Not a public school

Religion in the Academy

Religion in the academy is a trunk in the attic -- full of quaint commodities rendered valuable by the mere passage of time.

Religion in the academy is the science of the study of human loneliness.

It is speculation on a rumor about a phantom.

It is the methodical examination of molecules comprising the incomprehensible.

Religion in the academy is the hub of a dangerous wheel. It is to be probed, but not moved. Spun without traction. Studied, but not lived.

Religion in the academy is a cadaver. It is the cancerous backbone of empire, mummified.

It is less than all this, too: a discipline and a calling, a quest and a career.

Religion in the academy is political, but not in the electoral sense. It is political because the academy is political, and it is political because it is as ancient as our deepest enmities and oldest negotiations.

The academy had its beginnings as a religious institution; religion began its life as a way of organizing people around a moment risen to myth. In the academy we study those myth-moments in ever-greater detail.

The academy and the monastery are a double helix.

Religion in the academy is a strand of intellectual DNA, threaded through the genome of history, wired into the genetics of myth, bound into books. Silent in repose. Waiting.

--T.A.

The Invisible Chauffeur

That's what you are when you're driving a car full of kids somewhere. At 13, they consider any parental figure as extra- or subhuman anyway; when that parental figure is driving, s/he becomes a mere appendage of the automobile.

Last night I picked up five 12- and 13-year-olds (two girls, three boys) from a bar mitzvah party. Snippets of dialogue (all names have been changed to protect the adolescent):

"I saw Quarantine, now I'm afraid to go to a hotel."

"Did you go into that maze? It smelled really, really bad. Like everyone who'd gone in before me left all their sweat behind."

"Eric must've gone in right before you." (Giggles)

"Every time I call Ashley she says, 'I can't talk, I'm on the phone with the radio station.'"

"How come?"

"She's obsessed with winning stuff. Last week she won a year's supply of DoubleMint Gum."

"What?! How much is a year's supply of gum?!"

"What if she ate it all in one day? Would they give her more?"

"It's two pieces a day, every day."

"Are you cereal?!"

Volume drops exponentially with each kid that's dropped off. By the time there were only two kids left in the car (Gabe and his regular carpool companion), an exhausted silence -- tinged with a strain of "Sunday Afternoon Dread Syndrome" -- washed over us.

--T.A.

I wonder:

• Will New Orleans come back from a second catastrophic hurricane strike?
• Will Sarah Palin change the Republican Party?
• Will this presidential election, regardless of the winner, result in any substantive change in direction for the country?
• Having dropped seven pounds, can I lose another 13?
• Having raised two stepdaughters, why haven't I learned patience? My son can drive me crazier, faster, than the girls ever could.
• Is it because he's a boy?
• Or is it because he's like me, only smarter, better looking, and generally more evolved?
• Given that we're overfishing the oceans, should I swear off tuna?
• If you were in Cleveland, what would you do for fun besides going to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame?
• Will my family enjoy my son's bar mitzvah more than, say, the average trip to the dentist?
• Why am I writing this post?
• What are you doing this fine weekend?

--T.A.