Recently in Issues of Faith Category

If you've ever gathered together with a bunch of church ladies, this question has probably come up more than once. It is a reference to the two women in Luke 10:38-42. Jesus had been teaching in Galilee and had stopped to visit his friends in Bethany, Martha and Mary. Sisters, by this account.

Think about this, now. How often have we said that we're surprised by how different two siblings can be? Apparently, that's our Martha and Mary. And, with all the ensuant conflict as well. Martha (I don't think it's a bit ironic that Martha Stewart reigns over the domestic world!) is making a meal - no small feat 2000 years ago. No gas stove, no refridgeration. No sir, this chick probably was butchering and spitting the meat and building the fire in the pit just to get her little dinner party going. (And we whine about the water spots on the crystal!)

Anyway, Mary had the unmitigated gall to sit before Jesus' feet! Sitting on her tush, probably chewing on a piece of jerky with a wine chaser, and waxing poetically about the desert sunsets.

Excuse me! Could I get a little help here!?

What do you think of Dan Brown's DaVinci Code? When it was released several years back I reacted with annoyance and refused to buy the book or read it. I wasn't going to put money in Brown's pocket for such a scandalous and outrageous assault on what I believed. I figured this would go the way of many a pop culture sensation. . . at least in time.

Then months before the movie was released, I figured it was time to read it and then see the movie. It seemed that people kept asking me what I thought of the book. (I love to read and considering the fact that I'm a language arts teacher, people must have assumed that I would have read this when it first came out.) My ultimate decision to read it came as a result of the fact that I find it maddening when people pontificate about something they really don't know anything about.

By now my husband and our youngest have made it down to near Biloxi, MS for a mission trip to rebuild houses flooded or destroyed by Katrina. This will be my youngest daughter's second trip in as many weeks.

In June, she went with our church's youth group - a group of 35 youth and adults to New Orleans. There each day they donned suits, helmets, gloves and HEPA masks while they hauled out the evidence of what was once the lives of residents. They tore down walls, stripping theses homes to their studs. With many hands, the job was fast. Blessedly - for both the homeowners and the work teams.

I've always been a believer in getting dirty work done quickly. No laboring over the pain of the job.