The idea of sainthood has been on my mind all week. I remember sitting in the back of our Polish Roman Catholic church as a kid, reading my St Joseph's Daily Missal. This was pre-Vatican II, when the masses were still in Latin, the incense was heavy, the nuns were tyrants who must be obeyed and the priests could do no wrong.

This weekend in New Orleans I popped into the St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square, a building I've walked by several times but never entered. The usual things brought me inside this time: curiosity, a compulsive search for cool pictures that increasingly defines my days, and a sudden desire to find a calm spot in a nonstop city I love that can nonetheless can be exhausting.

"No matter how many projects and campaigns and initiatives and alliances we set in motion, we won't find fundamental solutions to societal ills until we learn how to approach this work with greater awareness, compassion, and humility." - Seasons Fund for Social Transformation

Listening deeply is something we have to learn to do. We can't do it just like that. When the other person is talking he or she is trying to express his or her difficulties and sufferings, and needs us to listen to that. But if we are not capable of listening, then the person who is speaking will not feel any relief in his or her suffering, and will finally give up talking. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Beliefnet.com, the internet’s largest faith-based site which since 1999 has been a home to spiritual and religious content and dialog across all denominational and religious borders, has been purchased today by Murdoch.

Over at the USA Today blogs, professor of women's studies and religion Mary Zeiss Stange reminds us that last spring, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas announced it was offering a new concentration to accompany its Bachelor of Arts degree in humanities: homemaking. The concentration is open only to women.

During grad school, I earned extra cash by serving as an educational outreach specialist for a local science center. I was studying the humanities, but my research concerned the intersection of gender, science, and museums. On several occasions, as I unpacked my hands-on science kits in front of a classroom, a girl--it was always a girl--whispered to me, "Are you a real scientist?"

While it's no surprise that food is present in the rituals and festivities of many (all?) of the world's religions, when Speaking of Faith's Krista Tippett interviewed author Barbara Kingsolver about her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I found it a fascinating hour and listened raptly as I fluffed flo