How spiritual can a spiritual guide be if a spiritual guide doesn’t guide you to God? I realize it sounds very much like I am spiritualizing that insightful question which has confounded intellectuals for millennia, “How much wood can a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”, but I am not. My question has nowhere near the profundity of said woodchuck conundrum. To me the answer is pretty obvious. How spiritual can a spiritual guide be if the spiritual guide doesn’t guild you to God? The answer is: “not very”.

Still, that didn’t stop the Russian Orthodox Church from publishing a new spiritual guide, in association with Russia’s ruling party, that doesn’t mention God.

According to a recent Reuters article (say “recent Reuters” ten times and then continue), instead of God making it into the church’s new guide, justice, patriotism, and solidarity top the list of ‘Eternal Values.’ Gee, it sounds more like a ‘conduct guide’ published by a labour union than a ‘spiritual guide’ published by a church!

According to the daily newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the spiritual guide lists, in order of importance, in the eyes of the church and ruling party: 1. justice, 2. freedom, 3. solidarity, 4. unity, 5. self-restraint and sacrifice, 6. patriotism, 7. welfare and 8. Love. Can you believe that? It looks like they stopped at eight! If they extended the list to the ever popular ‘Top Ten’ format, God may have squeaked into the list, or, er, ah, maybe not.

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I have a dear friend who is a gifted musical-type person. Not only is she a music teacher, but she also is an able musical director, in fact, presently she is a choir director with a community choir in the West end of Toronto.

Now, I have had the occasion to hear glimpses of this choir as it has practised and it is truly a very gifted group of singers. They sounded rich and vibrant as their harmonies effortlessly blend together. This is a choir that would give the cast of Glee a run for their money!

Recently I asked my friend when the choir would give their first performance, with her as their director, and she commented that a public performance wasn’t on the horizon anytime soon. In fact, they probably won’t perform publicly this year at all.

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What do you give to the gal who has everything including an iPad? How about an iPad cover from celebrated designer Yves Saint Laurent? For a mere $750.00 you can cover your $729.00 iPad. Or better yet, perhaps you should buy the $499.00 version of the iPad and buy the red and the black version of the cover! Perhaps if you buy two you can get a discount?

When I found out about this leather case today, I couldn’t help but see it as a symbol of the age we live in. I mean, we live in a world in which appearance and image are much more important than the substance of what is inside—even when what is inside is the latest, greatest offering from Apple! So what if it has won more “Gadget of the Year” awards than any other toy in recent memory? Take that “Miracle Chop” from Handy Gourmet!

We all know the old saying that “beauty is only skin deep.” We say that like it is a bad thing, but what does that matter when no one is really interested in going any deeper than “skin deep”?

Maybe it’s just that working on the outside seems to make more sense than paying any attention to the inside. I mean if you are going to put some effort into something, you want people to notice, right? So, yeah, people will notice those 20 pounds you lost, or those chiselled abs you worked so hard to get, or the Botox injection that makes you look ten years younger, albeit a less expressive ten years younger. But who is going to notice that you are more generous, or more forgiving? Who is going to notice that you have a greater faith or that you are more trustworthy? Or that you have ramped up your prayer life? Who is really going to care? Our world is too cynical and too distracted to even notice. Sure God might notice, but He’s God, He notices everything!

I get it. First impressions do matter. I understand we all judge by the outward appearance. To suggest otherwise is delusional, but then again, I have never heard of anything made by Yves Saint Laurent providing a “peace that passes understanding” (Phil 4:7)—No offence.