Word: godly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...years later, under her new name, she took the vows of a Carmelite nun. Sister Teresa's stance on Jewish issues was predictably mixed: she wrote a letter to the Pope deploring anti-Semitism, but also a spiritual last will and testament offering herself to God "for the atonement of the unbelief of the Jewish people." Her adopted faith, however, did not shield her from the Nazi horror. Stein was made to wear the Jewish star, and although her order transferred her to Holland, the occupying Germans rounded up all Jewish-born Catholic converts there in the summer...
Terrifying. But who ever said privacy is a God-given right--or, for that matter, a wholly good thing...
Then again, some people long ago learned to live with the burdensome sense of a distant, cloaked observer. They call the observer God. It would be easy to ridicule this comparison. After all, God is nice, whereas prying hackers aren't. But actually, depending on the denomination, God can be wrathful and dish out punishment unpredictably. It really keeps you on your toes...
...serious? Am I really nominating private-sector surveillance as a surrogate for village visibility and the heavy gaze of a punitive god? Well, no. For one thing, God punishes only real sins and aims to redeem; malicious hackers and personal enemies will settle for embarrassment. And God brings cosmic reassurance as well as fear; the technologies of surveillance are all hell, no heaven. But I am serious about raising the question: As we spend more time plugged in and less time in public view, and as many people take fire and brimstone less and less literally, where will the surrogates...
...everyone, but nobody knows how full it is, or how long the waiting list in Club Purgatory. Relatively few people are acknowledged by the Roman Catholic Church as having made it through the pearly gates. Those who are, and have been canonized, are designated as saints. They have God's ear; they can intercede with him on behalf of the living: if you have lost your car keys, you can say a prayer to St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of lost objects. The saints are distinguished by their virtue and piety, and it is remarkable how few practitioners...