Missing strings: Nearly 40 years ago Nathaniel Ayers was diagnosed with schizophrenia and subsequently thrown out of Juilliard School of Music. He ended up homeless and playing a two-string violin in the streets. Discovered by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, his story was the basis of the 2009 movie The Soloist. Ayers was invited this summer to the White House to perform on the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. "It's the most incredible thing I ever could have imagined," said Ayers, who still struggles with the disease (The Week, August 13).
Cloistered chants: An order of cloistered Benedictine nuns near Avignon, France, was picked as the world's finest female singers of Gregorian chant following a search by Decca Records. The nuns' order dates back to the sixth century. Their convent remains closed to the outside world, and its rules prohibit record company executives from entering the abbey. The nuns will film their own television commercial and photograph their own album cover. The album, Voices—Chant from Avignon, will be released in November (Catholic News Agency).
Occupational hazard I: Pastors are experiencing obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans, reports the New York Times (August 1). Clergy Health Initiative, a Duke University survey of Methodist ministers in North Carolina, cites clergy as having a 10 percent higher rate of obesity, for instance. One reason for the health problems: pastors are not taking time off for vacations. "They think that taking care of themselves is selfish, and that serving God means never saying no," says Gwen Wagstrom Halaas, a medical doctor who is married to a Lutheran minister and is the author of The Right Road: Life Choices for Clergy.
Occupational hazard II: In a New York Times op-ed piece (August 7) G. Jeffrey MacDonald argues that no amount of time taken off by pastors will address the main source of their stress: a consumer-driven religion which expects them to be spiritual concierges. "The pastoral vocation is to help people grow spiritually, resist their lowest impulses and adopt higher, more compassionate ways," says MacDonald, a United Church of Christ pastor and author of Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul. "But churchgoers increasingly want pastors to soothe and entertain them." He understands the pressure: the advisory committee in his own small Massachusetts congregation told him to keep his sermons to ten minutes, tell funny stories and help people feel good about themselves. The implicit message was "give us the comforting, amusing fare we want or we'll get our spiritual leadership from someone else."
Big government at work: Without government intervention, large parts of the auto industry would have been wiped out, losing a million or more jobs, says columnist E. J. Dionne. But the bailout was wildly unpopular at the time when George W. Bush and Barack Obama spent $25 billion and $60 billion respectively to save the ailing industry. When Obama added to the auto bailout funds, a Gallup poll found 72 percent opposed it. The Obama administration now claims that 55,000 auto-related jobs were added since June 2009 and that all three U.S. automakers are operating at a profit for the first time since 2004 (Washington Post, August 2).
Locked up: In 1970 the number of Americans in prison was fewer than one in 400; today that figure stands at one in 100, largely due to tougher laws and longer, mandatory sentences. One study found that if a person were arrested for aggravated assault at age 18 but managed to stay out of trouble until age 22, the risk of a repeat offense was no greater than it is for the rest of the population. Imprisonment is expensive: it costs California about $50,000 a year per prisoner—in a state where only a seventh of that amount is spent on education (Economist, July 24).
Flagging injustice: Churches throughout India were urged to hoist black flags for a day last month to protest discrimination faced by Christian Dalits, people from low castes treated as untouchables. The protest marks the 60th anniversary of the introduction of free education and reserved government jobs for Hindu Dalits. Such benefits were extended to Sikh Dalits in 1956 and then to Buddhist Dalits in 1990. Christian Dalits, who account for two thirds of some 28 million Christians in India, as well as Muslim Dalits, are denied these rights.
Can you do that? Anne Rice, author of best-selling vampire novels, returned to the Catholic Church in 1998 and stopped writing fiction about the underworld. But recently on her Facebook page she announced to fans that she has "quit being a Christian." She said she remains "committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group." She refuses to be part of a church whose public face is antigay, antifeminist, anti-artificial birth control and antiscience (Facebook.com).
Color of penance: Pope Benedict XVI has become known for his attire: red shoes, sunglasses rumored to be Serengetis and ermine-trimmed capes and hats. Anne Burke, who was head of the review board set up by the U.S. Catholic bishops to oversee their policies on priests accused of pedophilia, has written to the pope suggesting he wear a simple black cassock for the remainder of his papacy to demonstrate penance for the priest sex scandal. Speaking to a Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Burke said the pope should urge clerics to spend a day a week in prayer and fasting as a public expression of sorrow for failing to safeguard children (David Gibson at politicsdaily.com, July 31).
Swear not: The Church of Sweden is considering imposing fines on swearing at Synod meetings following the outbreak of profanity at last year's annual meeting. The proposal, slated for a vote this month, points out that soccer trainers are fined $70 for swearing during games (UPI).
