Answers to your questions about life, religion and the Bible

Pastors get some of the most interesting questions from people they meet and people in their congregations. Here are a few questions that I’ve gotten during my years of ministry and via email for this column.

Last week I wrote an article about divorce, “The Gift that Keeps on Taking.” I received two letters from women who took issue with me when I wrote, regarding marriage vows, “That’s one promise that must be kept.” I felt they had something to say. I have changed their names to protect their identities.

There’s something about outspoken conservative women that drives the left mad. It’s a peculiar pathology I’ve reported on for more than 15 years, both as a witness and a target. Thus, the onset of Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, Democratic circles and the cesspools of the blogosphere came as no surprise. They just can’t help themselves.

It’s a nutty year, a crazy time in our national life, and I’ve decided to decide — you’ll be glad to hear this, John McCain — that the ostensibly nutty choice of Sarah Palin as running mate is nutty in all the right ways.

Since Governor Sarah Palin’s daughter is not running for election this year, it is amazing how much the media has suddenly become obsessed with her. Her pregnancy not only made the front page of the New York Times, a printed announcement of her pregnancy stayed at the bottom of the television screen on CNN for what seemed to me to be about an hour or more.

Sometimes I think I’m drafting new chapters in the book our daughter Mary will surely write some day. Others have made a living out of writing about adventures like hers. Why not us?

After the second defeat of the effort to raise the sales tax in Fayette to pay for new schools, on Sept. 21, 1999, those who were pushing for the extra sales tax were understandably frantic. They were once again condemned (as a matter of state law) to waiting at least a year before staging another such vote, and many were misinterpreting the voters’ message to mean people were against building new schools.

Several years ago, an obituary in the Atlanta paper caught my eye and I clipped it out. I ran across it recently and, again as then, I found myself fascinated by how it summed up the man that died and what that summation says about our society.

A majority minority nation: that’s what the U.S. Census Bureau is projecting by the year 2042, according to new figures released last week.

Lawyers call this a “declaration against interest.”

Washington Post ombudsperson Deborah Howell wrote a column in her own newspaper comparing the paper’s front-page coverage of Democratic nominee Barack Obama with that of Republican nominee John McCain.

I was speaking with a pastor friend recently and he expressed concern that a couple in his congregation may be getting a divorce. I understand his consternation. I’m told that about half of all marriages, inside the church and out, end in divorce. My response to my friend was something like, “A bad divorce is infinitely worse than a troubled marriage.”

I might not have thought of this but for the anointing last weekend of Joe Biden as successor-designate to Dick Cheney — status to be confirmed, or disallowed, at the polls in November.

[Editor’s note: The dean of all Washington political columnists, Robert Novak, is well enough to write occasional columns, of which the first since since his illness was announced is below.]

When I was growing up, my dad told me more times than I could count, “Life’s just too short to worry about the little stuff. You only need to worry about big stuff.”

The Internet provides vast amounts of information but it can also spread vast amounts of misinformation, or even deliberately misleading disinformation.

As parents pack their youngsters off to college, they might ask themselves whether it’s worth both the money they will spend and their children’s time. Dr. Marty Nemko has researched that question in an article aptly titled “America’s Most Over-rated Product: Higher Education (www.martynemko.com/articles/americas-most-overrated-product-higher-education_id1539).”

Years ago a reader scolded me for writing a column that made her sad. I promised her I’d warn her at the top if a column might get teary.

In a previous article, I explained how the Fayette school board had scheduled SPLOST votes in March 1998 and in September 1999, and how a majority of the voters said No each time. The board wanted the 1 percent sales tax from SPLOST to build new schools.

You may recall past columns where I wrote of my friend, Stevie, who rescues distressed possums, and then influenced me to do the same when I found an injured possum on my front porch.

The group that gathered recently for our Wednesday night devotion and communion service got to talking about change. We considered whether we liked or did not like change and, as a group, we concluded that change does make us uncomfortable and that we’re more likely (including our teens) to want someone else to change than to change ourselves.

It came in the mail one day as if by magic. I didn’t request it, didn’t fill out any forms, nor did anyone call conducting a phone survey during dinner. I just opened the mailbox, and there it was. In a red, white and blue envelope was a welcome letter congratulating me for making it to my golden years – and a shiny new AARP card with my name embossed on the front.

Oh, no, not another “town hall” meeting.

Or at least, that’s how I first reacted when I learned the Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church intended to host an Obama-versus-McCain town hall forum at the evangelist’s California church.

Some professions are filled with stress. Every job has stress, of course, and some amounts of stress are considered good for performance. But there are those careers where stress can lead to burn-out and can become debilitating: air traffic controllers, firefighters, police officers, soldiers, emergency room workers, paramedics, for example ... and the list goes on and on.

The Democratic Party platform is like a bag of pork rinds. You never know what high-fat liberal government morsel you’re gonna get.

One major problem with politics — as we’ve all probably figured out by now — is that politicians view every human challenge as political in nature, meaning, particularly these last few years. Objective No. 1 in the political trade is sticking to it The Other Party.

What is happening in the republic of Georgia is all too reminiscent of what happened back in 1956, when Russian tanks rolled into Hungary — and the West did nothing.

The “civil forum” featuring presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain may not have been as exciting as Michael Phelps winning his eighth Olympic gold medal, but it was civil and it was a forum from which emerged useful information.

By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits, but in the meantime check out Professor John R. Lott’s “Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works.”

One of the fun things about having a column like this is that I can float ideas for local governments to handle without having to invest my own blood, sweat and tears.

When I was a student, in my late teens, I wanted a summer job. I needed money and I had my eyes on getting a car. These summer jobs were not exactly easy to get. One summer the only job I could get was a janitorial job, cleaning government offices as part of a crew from midnight to 8 in the morning five days a week. This nightshift work was rough!