We throw those terms around so much, you’d think one was godly and the other evil. Which is which depends on where you stand and what you believe.

We may have found the perfect litmus test to determine which you are.

This week, police in a community just west of New Orleans arrested a woman for killing her newborn baby. She had hid her pregnancy from the family and her boyfriend, given birth by herself, and then–sorry, but this is what happened–buried the just-born baby in the backyard. Wait, it gets worse, if you can believe it.

It appeared she had pulled it off without anyone being the wiser until the family dog dug up the remains in the backyard and–again, sorry–began chewing on the body. The boyfriend found the dog and what was left of the child and, clueless concerning the facts of the situation, called the police.

The police came out, studied the situation, and arrested the woman. They charged her with two crimes: murder of her baby (she said she thought it was dead when it was born) and cruelty to her dog. The animal, it turns out, was malnourished and that’s why he was digging up and eating the poorly buried body.

Sordid tale, I grant you, and I apologize for even telling it. However, we needed to tell the story in order to pose a question.

“Which charge concerns you more–killing the baby or neglecting the dog?”

Your answer tells volumes about you.

If ending the life of the child concerns you more, you are a conservative. If neglecting to feed and care for the dog bothers you more, you are a liberal.

Diane Sawyer once spoke to the chamber of commerce’s annual banquet in the city where we were living. She gave us a memorable distinction between liberals and conservatives.

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Saturday, Northrop-Grumman’s New Orleans Shipyards dedicated the “New York,” the one billion dollar amphibious transport ship that will belong to the Marines. The front of the ship, the bow, the section that parts the waters and leads the way, is made up of 65 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center. A number of New Yorkers were on hand Saturday for the dedication.

My son Neil who works for Northrop-Grumman in Human Resources was assigned to one of the buses moving dignitaries around the area. He stood at the front, held a mike, and gave explanations and answered questions for the guests. Later, when asked if he had seen any celebrities, he said, “Charlie Daniels.”

I love the “in your face-ness” of this gesture, taking steel from the twisted girders of the collapsed skyscrapers and recycling them into a mighty vessel that will defend this nation against the Osama bin-Ladens of this world. I applaud whoever first thought of doing this, and doff my hat to everyone responsible for pulling this off.

In the crest–not sure what they call those things–on the side of the ship, its motto clearly proclaims: “Never Forget.”

Godspeed, New York, and all who go with you.

“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep…. He bringeth them into their desired haven.” (Psalm 107:23-24,30)

This business of taking the ruins of life’s failures/disasters and recycling them into mighty forces for good has a long and honorable tradition. In fact, Scripture teaches us that God is always at work in our lives pulling off the same trick, turning our stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

“The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” That’s Psalm 118:22 and it’s quoted again and again throughout the New Testament. The various writers of Scripture thought it summed up this divine transaction in a way that was uniquely God-like.

Divine alchemy, we might call it. Taking the mundane and turning it into precious.

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Some four or five years ago, the Sunday “Parade” magazine ran a cover article on the actress Sandra Bullock in which they quoted her with a wonderful line. “What makes you different,” she said in huge letters on the front cover, “makes you beautiful.” I thought it was a maxim for the ages and eagerly devoured the article, only to discover that the writer included the line in the final paragraph of the story and it was never elaborated on. I was disappointed, because it’s one of those lines which, if original with Sandra, surely carries a history.

A couple of times every year, I find myself talking with teenagers about their self-esteem. No segment of our society struggles more with issues of personal acceptance than American teenagers, particularly in their early teen years, and most especially, the girls. Somewhere in the presentation I never fail to drop in that line, assuring them that they should not try to look like everyone else, that “what makes you different makes you beautiful.”

Now comes a movie which uses that line in its advertisements. My wife and I took our eleven-year-old granddaughters Abby and Erin to see “Penelope” Saturday afternoon. Margaret said the girls chose the movie; I was drawn to it by the desire to see what the movie did with this truism which had imbedded itself in my mind ever since Sandra Bullock coined it. Assuming she did.

“Penelope” is the story of a girl born with a pig’s snout and ears, the result, we’re told, of a curse on the family by a witch from a couple of centuries back. Only when the child thus cursed is successfully wed to a blue-blood “for better or for worse, til death do they part,” will the curse be lifted. When the child is born, the parents are mortified and hide her inside their mansion until she is of marriageable age. They are revolted by her appearance and so is every suitor whom they parade by her as a possible mate. We the viewers never quite see what all the excitement is about. She has a wide turned-up nose, but is not the monster they all make her out to be.

Eventually, the curse disappears–not as a result of a wedding, but simply when Penelope quits hiding and says, “I like myself the way I am”–and she becomes “normal,” whatever that means. In this case, it means she gets the nose of actress Christina Ricci who plays her. A child in a class Penelope tells the story to suggests that the moral of the story is that a curse has only the power we grant it. It’s true, but too profound to come from the mouth of a seven-year-old.

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In the weeks and months following Katrina–next August 29 will mark the third anniversary of this hurricane–we all said something like the following to one another around here:

“We’d better do all we can while we still have the nation’s attention. People are notorious for short attention spans. The next major hurricane will draw the focus and resources in that direction, and we’ll be deserted.”

The remarkable thing is that two-and-a-half years later, that still has not happened. First and foremost, no hurricane of any size has hit the U.S. mainland during this period, so no great disaster has supplanted New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to siphon away the focus and resources.

Secondly, our nation’s leaders–many of them at any rate–are determined to make the federal government keep its promises to this region. And thirdly, the churches of America still have us on their hearts and continue to send teams of volunteers this way to rebuild homes, restore communities, and revive dashed hopes.

We’re grateful, make no mistake.

The glamour has gone off by now, however. And that’s not all bad.

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Saturday, March 1, at 9 am, I’m teaching leadership at Suburban Baptist Church in New Orleans.

Sunday, March 2, at 11 am, preaching for “Home Missions Sunday” at Bethel Baptist Church on Prine Road in Citronelle, Alabama.

Tuesday, March 11, 9 am to noon, speaking twice at the Senior Adult Rally at First Baptist Church of Laurel, Mississippi.

Wednesday, March 12, meeting of the board of New Orleans Baptist Missions, which administers the work of the various SBC mission centers in our city.

Friday night/Saturday morning, attending the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Foundation Board meeting.

Sunday night, March 23 at 6 pm, preaching at Emmanuel Baptist Church, Gordo, Alabama.

Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday mornings (March 24-26) speaking at the Senior Adult Revival for the Baptists of Pickens County, Alabama. (Did not make a note of the name of the church where we’ll be meeting. My host is Dr. Tommy Winders of Carrollton FBC.)

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Tuesday morning, on the interstate heading toward Alexandria, I reached for my glasses to read a line on something and as I was opening them up, the right earpiece broke in two. No stress on it or anything. It was just time, I reckon.

At the Wal-Mart in Opelousas, I bought a pair of reading glasses to get me through the next couple of days, and made a mistake. I chose the cheapest things they had, which turned out to be inadequate. That night, when I got home, I used the reading glasses usually parked beside the computer. I’ve had them several years and they work just fine.

Russell, my deacon friend who runs the optical shop at Ochsners, has ordered another earpiece for my regular glasses, but it’s not in yet.

Then, today, while buying groceries, I glanced at the reading glasses I was holding in my hand, and the right earpiece was missing. While I stood there, the left one fell off. This was not my day.

I drove to Wal-Mart and paid 20 bucks for another pair. That’s why I’m able to see what’s going on the computer screen at this moment.

Walking around without my glasses feels for all the world like I’m missing my pants or shoes. Undressed.

Hurry up, Russell.

“Philanthropist follows his heart, opens his wallet” read the front-page headline in Wednesday’s paper. Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes and Noble, announced Tuesday that he is devoting 20 million dollars from his family’s charitable foundation to erecting 120 homes in the Gentilly neighborhood. The paper says, “Those involved in Project Home Again believe it is the largest philanthropic project launched in New Orleans since the storm.”

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