Davison's Doodle

The God Glut
by Frank Bruni | The New York Times | Dec 10, 2012

Bob Kerrey’s political career spanned four years as the governor of Nebraska and another 12 as a United States senator from that state, during which he made a serious bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. In all that time, to the best of his memory, he never uttered what has become a routine postscript to political remarks: “God bless America.”  That was deliberate.  “It seems a little presumptuous, when you’ve got the land mass and the talent that we do, to ask for more,” he told me recently.

We have God in our public schools, a few of which cling to creationism, and we have major presidential candidates — Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum — who use God in general and Christianity in particular as cornerstones of their campaigns. God’s initial absence from the Democratic Party platform last summer stirred more outrage among Americans than the slaughter in Syria will ever provoke.  Click here to read more.

A Measure of Elf Awareness
Dec 5, 2012

I’ll just admit it. The Elf on the Shelf creeps me out. I mean, something that watches every move I make, reports back to Santa, and can run around my house at night? No, thank you.

Thing is, my kids love it. So, like many of you, I take the little bugger down from one clever locale each night, and go about finding yet another creative and whimsical place for our elf to hide out for the next morning. Last night, as a matter of fact, I dropped a cast-iron wall sconce on my toe, trying to get the #*^& elf into a creative and whimsical position. It hurt like you-know-what, and woke up one of the kids to boot.

In this season of preparation and much doing, let’s pause and remember that 1) whatwe do is not nearly as important as for whom we do it. And 2) we don’t have to do so much! We can all find things to eliminate from the calendar and the shopping list, so that we can move through the season with a slow joy and a sense of meaning.  Click here to read more.