By Sally Morgenthaler

It's Super Bowl Sunday and you've succumbed. Not to the prospect of an exciting game (looks like this is going to be a blowout), but to multimillion dollar-commercial-hype. You can't wait to see what the advertising gurus have cooked up. Oh, here's a strange one. The Cingular Wireless spot captures your attention: A paraplegic genius paints with his mouth. This is strange. But the art is stunning. Music wafts in the background. Chant. You listen closely. Nah...couldn't be. Oh, but it is. The Agnus Dei from the Catholic mass. "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis"-"Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us." Amazing.

On Monday, you slip into Einstein's Bros. Bagels for a quick lunch. The line is already extending to the door. For your reading pleasure, you're greeted by this sign: "Feed Your Inner Bagel." Whatever that means. Sort of like inner tennis? You don't get it. After waiting for a family of seven to figure out that it's okay if little Billy orders an onion bagel with blueberry cream cheese, chocolate chips, and sprouts, you finally step up to the counter. Then you see it. The server's pea-green T-shirt. Its message emblazoned in excruciating orange. "Jump off the spiritual bridge with your inner bagel and splash around in the coffee of life."

Tuesday. Your friend who lives in London emails. He just went to the Seeing Salvation exhibit in London which depicts the life of Christ from 2,000 years of history and a dozen countries. He says that attendance has been triple that of the futuristic Millennial exhibit for over a year. Hmmm. Isn't the UK supposed to be full of atheists? Weird.

On Wednesday, your science-teacher cousin sends you an article. It seems that Britain's Royal Astronomer, Martin Rees, is teetering on belief. In his new book, Just Six Numbers (Basic Books), Rees claims that the existence of the universe is highly-no, deeply-unlikely. "(There are) six numbers that constitute a recipe for the universe." He adds that, if any one of the numbers were different, "even to the tiniest degree, there would be no stars, no complex elements, no life."

Okay. It's Thursday. Time to work on this week's sermon. But you're distracted. Bothered, to be honest. Since when was the world such a pious-albeit weirdly pious-place? It wasn't so long ago that all the church had to compete against was people's diversions. Entertainment. Miscellaneous experiences. Now it has to compete for people's God-attentions, for heaven's sake. Non-Christians' hallowed space. Unchurched Harry's intersections with the (gasp) inscrutable. And you realize somewhere in the middle of that Cingular commercial, the '80s phrase "Reaching irreverent people" became obsolete. What in the world happened, anyway? There you were, minding your own business. Your church was really starting to groove on the Christian entertainment thing. You'd finally routed all that dusty, religious stuff from the mother church. Now even the "core of the core" in the congregation are asking for litanies. You couldn't identify-much less find-a litany if your next raise depended on it. You sigh. "Somebody's moved my bagel." Still, maybe you could ask the priest down the street (what's his name?) where to find some litanies...

This article appears courtesy of REV. Magazine May/Jun 01 Column RevMagazine.com