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I unabashedly love this ad, simply and only because I love the way the little girl says “She thinks you’re super delicious.”

I know. Such a deep life I lead.

As my students say? Yeah…whatever.

I really shouldn’t read the local newspaper. Really. Today’s top headline (online, at any rate), was this:

47 Straight Days of Prayer

And in the article, this:

Residents can pray at 28 churches, at the Richmond Municipal Building, Richmond High School, at two local businesses, a local drug rehab center and the Townsend Community Center.

Okay, the 28 churches is fine. Local businesses, sure that’s fine. The rehab center and the community center, okay. But the Richmond Municipal Building? The High School? Um, is it just me or aren’t these public buildings, kind of funded and supported, and heck paid for, by taxpayers’ money? That would include me, last I checked. And some other folks who are rather skeptical of the blurring of the line between church and state. Let alone “community prayer.”

I’m a little busy right now, so I won’t be out protesting this. Okay, I wouldn’t be out protesting anyway. That’s not my thing, and I rather hope this is a benign group of folks with well meaning intentions. But I do wonder: Is this legal? Is it nice? Is it right?

What I mean is, is this another example of a kind of religious passive aggression? For example: imagine I’m a kid who goes to RHS. I’m not particularly religious, don’t go to church, am skeptical of prayer. However, I’m a good kid, I think about things in the world in creative, intelligent, respectful ways. I’m exploring issues of faith and the cosmos in my own way. So imagine me, this kid, walking into school on day #1 of the 47 days of prayer. There’s a group praying, right there in my school. Maybe they’re on the front steps, maybe they’re in a classroom on the third floor, maybe they’re in the lunch room. The visibility of the group is irrelevant. I know they are there. I feel a little strange, sensitive intelligent kid that I am. I find myself wondering: would the powers that be at my school let me have a group of — oh let’s call us “Questing Agnostics” — would they let us meet on the front steps, the third floor, the lunch room? I kind of think they might not. I kind of worry about even asking.

Why wouldn’t I even ask? Because I know, in this town, I’m a minority. I know this because the school lets prayer groups in, and the newspaper prints feel good stories about the groups, and the city building lets the prayer groups in, and it seems that everyone just routinely approves of public prayer. No questions asked. That’s the majority opinion in this town. Does that make it right? No. It just means most people think that way. Here. In Richmond, Indiana. I — the imaginary sensitive high school student — I don’t think that way. Does that mean I’m wrong? Nope. It means I’m simply in the minority, one of a smaller group of people — here, in Richmond, Indiana — who doesn’t believe in the power of prayer. So I am, effectively, silenced.

Hmm. Is this the message we want to give our children? Somehow, I don’t think so.

This month, at the back of my Vogue magazine, there appeared a slender issue of Men’s Vogue. Oddly, I found the articles there infinitely more interesting than the ones in Vogue itself. Maybe not so oddly. I am growing weary of reading about the Big Three in the world of women’s fashion: Weight, Skin, and Age. Girls! There’s more to life than this! And happily, men seem to know it. Or at least they’re applauded for it. Or they don’t care if they’re a little chubby, a little weatherbeaten, a little over the hill. Heck, I don’t care either. So, yes, I liked reading Men’s Vogue. Especially the profile of Jeremy Irons (somewhat lean, lined and weatherbeaten, of a certain age), and especially this piece of information tossed out about him:

the castle he owns in County Cork, Ireland, which he worked on for six years. “I did the castle because I was getting very bored with my film work, and I thought it was showing,” Irons says. “So I wanted to do something that galvanized me, where there was risk and danger, and so I did the castle. After that, I worked up an appetite to go back to filming. “

It occurred to me, after reading this that a castle, or a castle-equivalent, is exactly what I need right now. Something that “galvanizes me, where there is risk and danger.” I am rather bored with my writing work. I do know it’s showing. I’m not enthusiastic enough about teaching. I’m good enough that I don’t think that’s showing … yet. That, perhaps, is only a matter of time.

So what is a castle equivalent? For me it’s got to be big. I have a great life right now: nice house, good yard, crazy but sweet dogs, super delicious love life, good job, decent writing projects that will — eventually — recapture my attention. What’s missing? A horse. That is definitely missing. A big, talented, challenging horse. That is my castle equivalent.

Stay tuned.

Tomorrow night, Thursday April 9, at 7 p.m., Indiana University East will be showing the documentary film 1:47 in Vivian Auditorium. If you are a reader of this blog, you are invited to come out and see the film. And bring your friends too. I’ll be there, and say a few things before and after the film.