I have never been one to revel in "God talk." Raised by two lefty-liberal atheist Jews who gave me a sense of culture but didn't believe in organized religion, I tend to shy away from the religious, particularly the openly religious and especially the religious right. However, as a lefty-liberal practicing Jew (some mix of Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Renewal with a healthy dose of Workmen's Circle thrown in) I've come to the conclusion that it's time to take back the "God talk" because god and morality do not belong to the religious right. In fact, lefty-liberal religious action has been around for a long time. The Catholic Church, Judaism, Episcopalians (for example) all have long traditions of working for social change. [Dar Williams has a great song about the priest Daniel Berrigan]
Maybe it's the holiday season, or the capture of Saddam, or Anne Lamott's column today on Salon.com... Okay, I'll admit it, it was Anne Lamott's column... but the time has come to embrace that tradition and learn to speak the language. Because, in theory, that is the language that so many people in our country speak. We should not let moral authority come from so-called good christians like our dear president. Because, though I don't know much christian theology, he doesn't strike me as one of the good ones.
And while we're sort of on the subject, Chanukah starts tonight... the celebration of the miracle of conservation: one night's oil lasted eight nights. So, go out today and buy a few cfl's (compact fluorescent light bulbs) to replace some of the regular bulbs in your house. They last 10 times as long. They save a ton of energy (4 times more efficient than regular incandescents)... and also some money on your electric bill. And, if everyone replaced three regular bulbs with three cfl's it would eliminate about 23 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions (carbon dioxide is one of the leading causes of glogal climate change). That equals taking 18 million cars off the road.
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