In Durango, CO Taylor Ostergaard and Lindsey Jo Zellitti, 17 and 18 years old, left homemade cookies at the house of Wanita Renea Young (49).

Ms. Young couldn’t sleep all night, and went to the hospital the next day with an upset stomach.

The girls had to pay her 900 bucks.

What has this world come to? I guess they didn’t have any business scaring the woman half do death, but the woman said she saw ’shadowy figures’ and, I guess cookies excluded, she thought they were terrorists or folks out to malign her somehow…

Point being — it’s sad that the media (and the government) has worked everybody up into a frenzy, ‘keep on the lookout’ — you never know when anthrax might be in those cookies.

The poor woman had a terrible night — I know what that’s like — but really, aren’t we all afraid right now — we lefties are afraid of the righties, and the righties are afraid of the terr’rists, and they think that all the lefties are terr’rists too. And the media has us all mixed up as to who’s who.

Check out Jim Wallis’ new book, God’s Politics — which talks about all of this brilliantly, and honestly. (Not about the cookies or the two poor girls who had to pay the woman’s hospital bills, though, not to mention the cost of the cookies). Here is a link to the first chapter on the NY Times website — if you don’t have access to it — you can suscribe for free…

Last Thursday, Dr. Ernst Mayr, the most important evolutionary biologist of the 20th century, passed away.

Charles Darwin lived so long ago,that he never saw a CD, LP, television set, and for that matter, probably not even many photographs. Society is still debating whether his ‘theories’ hold water — and he died before the first airplane.

What is the focus of these two great, now deceased men? Was it apes and simply human origin? No. That would be really self-centered, and not typical of the open and creative thinking of both men.

Where do new species originate? That is the question, as it always has been. Why do certain animals live while others die, some migrate while others stay put. Why did the dinosaurs die?

There is a new “Museum of Creation” being built for a ton of money. They are portraying, among other things, Adam and Eve strolling around in the time of dinosaurs, and an explanation of how “The Great Flood” created the Grand Canyon. This is a solution to the fact that kids dig dinosaurs and the Grand Canyon, and were questioning the literal-ness of the bible due to their interest and understanding (labeled ‘doubt’ by their parents and preachers). So of course, Adam and Eve walked the earth in the time of dinosaurs.

If you haven’t seen Pay it Forward, you need to rent it, or take it out from your nearest library. I am so enamored with the idea, the filmmaking, the entire shabang, that I went and bought it (and I am not a film-buyer — I tire of them usually after one viewing).

If you haven’t seen the film, go see it.

If you have already seen it, keep reading.

If you don’t want to do either — just go to www.payitforwardfoundation.com — you’ll dig the concept.

I have been consistently surprised, lately, by the creative depth of young folk, and wasn’t surprised when the main character in Pay it Forward came up with a plan to save the world. I guess in very biblical manner, the answer comes from ‘the least of these’ — and the kid ends up dying a ‘martyr’ of sorts…

The concept isn’t new: do something for someone else that is really big, and they’ll pass it on. That is the fundamental tenet of my Christian belief, as well as the lesson that I learned off of the wall of first grade, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you…”

But this movie is new. Throughout the movie, the kid’s character almost loses its integrity… but when he breaks out into a big smile while being interviewed on television near the end, the actor, Haley Osmont and the character retreat back into the frame of a little boy — and then his death takes on an entirely different character.

Please check out the website for the film — just google ‘pay it forward’ and you’ll find lots of stuff about it — and go to the links page — and you can find tons of organizations to do something like what Haley Osmont’s little character did in the movie — you can take charity into your own hands. And also check out www.payitforwardfoundation.com — especially if you are an educator — they have interesting programs and links.

This morning I was reading Sojourners’ February issue… Inside is an excerpt from Jim Wallis’ new book entitled, “God’s Politics: Why the Right has it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it.”

He synthesizes the divisions in this country as not simply blue and red, but more across the spectrum. There are those who are truly red, and those who are truly blue, the leftists and the rightists. And there are the people in the middle, so talked about in the recent election — who didn’t know what to do, how to vote — and theoretically, according to much of the media, decided to vote based on ‘moral values.’ Wallis gives props to a fourth group, which is the group I find myself in.

I am of very liberal politics when it comes to poverty, social justice, pacifism and war, oppression, the environment. And I am of very conservative values: I value life above all else, I value love over trysts, I rarely take foreign substances into my body… The people on the left don’t understand me — including my colleagues, friends, my family — because of my Christian ‘moral values’, and the people on the right don’t understand the bumper stickers on the back of my car that prominently say, “Bush ‘04 Eat the Poor,” and “God is not a Republican or a Democrat.” (They often yell out the window, or flash me the finger, or pass me across the double yellow line, albeit my old van can’t get up to speed too efficiently any more either)

Jeshua Erickson is a master and a hack, a songsmith and a dreamer. His songs make me shiver down to my little hairs and at the same time look into the mirror with disgust. He makes me question the role I play in the suffering of the world, and the role I play in the lives of others. All with a few words and a few chords.

Swords into Plowshares is Jeshua’s masterpiece until now, but, God willing, not his only. As a songwriter, Jeshua is an orchid in full bloom and a spring sparrow feeding us his words: He gets it, and he chews it up, and he opens our mouths and he opens our ears, and he pours in this mash of truth. His fingers find a way to pull out what they need to, and his voice strains against its strings. And his words hit the place deep below the gut where everything counts twice.

The day after Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 17, the NY Times ran an article by Elisabeth Bumiller titled, “Bush Cites Religion as a Pillar for Dr. King…”

Truly, after reading the article, if I had known nothing about George Bush, I would be proud to have him speak on my behalf. Because I know that he probably didn’t write the speech, I don’t give him entire credit, but I am impressed with the words that came out of his mouth, especially in this time that I am so upset by his diatribes about ‘freedom’ gleaned from the philosophies of Israeli nationalist Natan Sharansky.

Bush said of Dr. King at the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, “He believed and he knew that the image of God we share is a source of our dignity as human beings and the basis for our equality. He believed and he knew that the teachings of Jesus stand in eternal judgment of oppression. He believed and he knew that the God who made us for freedom will bring us to freedom.”