Warning: political-leaning entry below.

Author Ann Lamott writes a column for salon.com.  Of particular interest to me was a column from April 2005 in which she responds to the question she frequently is asked, “how do you reconcile your Christian faith with that of the radical right?”  She responds, “I don’t even try.”

One paragraph that caught my attention was her analysis of the fundamentalist “appropriation” of God:

“What the right has “appropriated” has nothing to do with God as most of us believers experience God. Their pronouncements about God are based on the great palace lie that this is a Christian country, that they were chosen by God to be his ethical consultants, and that therefore they alone know God’s will for us. The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.”

What a true statement.

It is about 7:00 am Tuesday morning, local time, and our friend Patricia is about 10 hours into her journey from Kansas City to Khrungthep.  She’ll arrive this evening just before midnight, probably completely exhausted.  Sadly, I received an email from her sister this morning that Pat’s son’s car was stolen and when it was recovered by the police they stored it in impound.  Since the car is in her name, they need a copy of her identification so that it can be released.  So as soon as Pat arrives, I’ll have to break that news to her.  Fun start to a vacation.  Well, she’ll get ten days after that to relax.

Pat is the first of about a dozen friends and family members who will be making their way to Khrungthep between now and the middle of December.  Should be an exciting five weeks.