Waste not, want not

...The assumption behind the Lenten liturgies is that our hearts have hardened, our wits dulled, against the assault of headlines like "Hiring for Education Board Bypasses Qualifications," or "War-Ravaged Timor Struggles Back from Abyss...

...Despite the federal government's failure to establish a means for safely disposing of waste already in the United States, every year it imports thousands of pounds of spent fuel from abroad...

...Like many other aspects of his decision requiring further analysis, the principle enunciated here appears infinitely expandable: virtually all decisions can be shown to be somehow "religiously informed"--are they therefore covered by the First Amendment's protection of "free exercise of religion...

...Rejecting the arguments that the Hyde Amendment advanced some religions and inhibited others or involved excessive entanglement between church and state, the judge added: Apart from that, it is clear that the healthy working of our political order cannot safely forego the political action of the churches, or discourage it...

...it did not become a narrowly religious view "because, after 1973, the most vigorous spokesmen for it put their case in religious terms, and grounded them in religious reasons...

...Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless...

...For the moment we note that the value of "the political action of the churches" and of religiously motivated individuals has been vindicated...

...We are grateful, then, for the rememberings and connections invoked inside our skins by the Lenten liturgies...

...The Supreme Court is yet to be heard ;from...

...The i'elianee, as always, must be on giving an alert and critical hearing to every informed voice, and the spokesmen of religious institutions must not be discouraged, nor inhibited by the fear that their support of legislation, or explicit lobbying for such legislation, will result in its being constitutionally suspect...

...And as the use of atomic power around the world increases--often with the help of American-supplied fuel--more and more used nuclear material is finding its way back to this country...

...The Scripture we hear and the gestures we participate in claim for us an ider~tity founded on remembering ourselves or our ancestors when we or they were homeless refugees, strangers upon the land, poor and vulnerable...

...In a passage which Hyde amendment opponents did cite, the court indicated a serious First Amendment question insofar as the congressional measure limited "religiously formed conscience," i.e., the decision of a woman whose religious faith recognized moral justifications for abortion...

...The purpose of Lent is thus to let God's time intersect with earth-time, or as the Ash W~nesday liturgy puts it, "that in him we might become the very holiness of God...

...LENT'S NEWS Igor Stravinsky once remarked that electronic media so dull the senses, our inner senses, that report of the death of millions affects us about as much as the death of our pet canary...

...Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke...

...Although the plan does have a certain moral appeal, it seems to overlook the fact that a 29 February 1980:I01...

...Until now, the program has been relatively modest...

...Lenten liturgies have a way of reminding us of what we'd often rather forget, "the alien" within ourselves, and our complicity with the passion-stories of "the others...

...The egocentric Cyclopian eye is riveted rather to those leads which threaten havoc for our budget, like "Saudi Oil Raised 8...

...When such a presence resonates within us, however, it is like discovering our own heart's desire, the great conjunction wherein Timor's distant straggle "back from abyss," or the anger of those "bypassed" and forgotten, becomes our own...

...Nuclear energy WASTE NOT, WANT NOT BUYING BACK BY-PRODUCTS T HE LAW OF PHYSICS that every action creates an opposite reaction may have haunting new implications for atomic technology in the United States...

...For they give depth in startling ways to those front-page matters we'd often prefer to forget or take in a strictly self-interested way...

...Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own...

...The reason for this, according to a State Department official, is that most of the foreign nations that buy fuel from America "cannot handle it themselves once it's been burned...

...This referred to the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment rather than the "establishment" clause...

...An inevitable byproduct of nuclear energy is nuclear waste...

...Just as spirit-time is rarely sensational (in the double meaning of that word), except when a Mother Teresa wins a Nobel Prize, so the transactions of soul and spirit are rarely recorded...

...58:7-8) Participation in the Lenten rituals may move us to experience the real presence of that GOd who compassionately remembers this dismembered world and would love all its fragments back to wholeness and health...

...But if it is expanded, as the Carter administration is considering, this country could become permanent caretaker for all of the atomic waste produced by its customers overseas...

...This can mislead us into imagining such transactions do not happen, or that they are confined and lost in strictly private dramas...

...Isa...

...That's the Lenten news, in empty spades, between the lines...

...This, rather is the fasting that I wish, releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke...

...All the more reason, then, toxemark the opportunity of Lent...

...The rationale is that reducing waste accumulation in other countries will reduce their interest in reproeessing, which can lead to nuclear weapons production...

...and from the judge's brief ar~ment it is not clear whether he meant this~,point to stand alone or only to reinforce his general equal treatment (Fifth Amendment) argument...

...Then your light shall break forth...