Finding their voice NELVIN CEPEDA / Union-Tribune Sabreena Yaseen, with little sister Komal in the background, waited with her hijab to leave for the first day of middle school.

Sweetwater Zen Center Location: 2727 Highland Avenue in National City Phone: (619) 477-0390 What makes worship special? The focus of Sweetwater Zen Center is meditation. Zen meditation is the practice that forms the basis of our life. We support inter-faith practice. Mission Statement: Our purpose is to end suffering. Our practice is to study the self, maintain the precepts and serve others. Why should visitors attend? New visitors are encouraged to make an appointment for meditation instruction before joining us. Meditation can help anyone to manage stress, feel better and relax. It is also a wonderful way to experience spiritual awakening.

What Would You Do? You loaned a friend a valuable book he had admired, and he returned it in worse condition. The pages are dog-eared, and it looks as if it were dropped in water. You were livid and told him so; he was offended; and you haven't spoken since. But now, you'd like to let bygones be bygones. What Would You Do? Words to live by: "The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows." – Sydney J. Harris

Dec. 25 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
With help of angels: This is no time for a baby. Folks here need grown-up help. The kind that comes with heavy machinery, not swaddling cloths. Someone who can navigate insurance forms and building permits, not just lie there in a manger.

SAN DIEGO, Dec. 16 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Jewish, Muslim groups connect: In what is being described as the first such effort of its kind, two major Jewish and Muslim groups will launch “serious education programs” in the United States and Canada aimed at bridging a divide formed from centuries of animosity over land, politics and religion.

Nov. 17 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Gift-giving that makes a difference: You can buy four stemless wine glasses for your auntie or provide a month's worth of nutritional supplements for 75 children in Darfur in her name. You can get a box of chocolate truffles for your boss or give him a card saying his gift is buying two days of groceries for a family of four in the USA.

Nov. 17 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Nov. 17 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion scholars to discuss range of topics: You might call it the Comic-Con of religion scholars – minus the Vulcan ears and participants dressed up as superheroes. On the other hand, it will feature the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Oct. 14 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Will Christian right leave GOP at altar?: Republicans have a Mormon whose religion gives some people pause and a Catholic who supports abortion rights. Democrats have front-runners who are turning Scripture into sound bites. And Christian conservatives are threatening to back a third-party candidate.

POINT LOMA, Aug. 27 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Church wants to be 'good neighbors' in new home: Inside the cavernous new The Rock Church, a jubilant minister and his congregation clapped and cheered as strobe lights brushed colors across the stage.

Aug. 18 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
A mighty presence: Shaded by his construction helmet, Pastor Miles McPherson gestures to the massive building that the Rock Church and Academy will soon call home. He compares it to the size of Noah's Ark.

Aug. 18 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Delving into fundamental differences: Christiane Amanpour is on vacation in France. Sort of. The CNN star also is putting the finishing touches on a six-hour documentary airing next week about the often volatile mix of politics and religion.

Aug. 11 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly offerings: Thursday marks the 30th anniversary of when Elvis Presley left Graceland for a more-celestial mansion. And Joe Moscheo would like you to remember that the King of Rock 'n' Roll had a lot of gospel in him, too.

Aug. 4 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: The Rev. Gary Cass, (pictured) a former San Diego County pastor who moved to Florida to head the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ and become a player in the religious right political movement, has a new job: chairman of newly formed Christian Anti-Defamation League.

Aug. 4 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Aug. 4 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Survey says: 1: Number of San Diego County congregations among the 50 most influential churches in America, an annual list compiled by The Church Report, an evangelical journal.

SAN DIEGO, July 30 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Crowd flocks to reggae gospel concert in park: Bold, booming voices filled the air, with singers praising God and Jesus and the joy of salvation. But this was no traditional gospel concert.

July 16 (STAFF WRITERS
and Matt Krasnowski
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

)
Mahony apologizes, hopes S.D. settles: Cardinal Roger Mahony apologized yesterday to hundreds of victims who will share a $660 million settlement, admitting he made mistakes in his handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

July 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Los Angeles archdiocese will settle abuse suits: The Archdiocese of Los Angeles will pay an estimated $660 million to more than 500 victims of child sexual abuse by clergy, making it the largest settlement since the nationwide Roman Catholic scandal erupted in 2002.

April 21 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Bishop says he doesn't know value of assets: Bishop Robert Brom and other officials of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego admitted yesterday that they understated the value of church property by many millions of dollars in its bankruptcy filings.

March 24 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Tell us about it: Last week, we asked you to weigh in on whether a sex offender should be allowed to worship in a church (Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad is wrestling with this issue). Based on your responses, you have a definite opinion. Take a look.

March 24 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Photos: Praying for peace:

March 3 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Revival tactics: Martha Grace Reese doesn't sugarcoat the numbers. Between 1960 and 2000, membership dropped by 5 million people in the seven mainline Protestant denominations she studied. Meanwhile, the population of the United States grew by 100 million.

March 3 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Tell us about it: Last week, we asked you if the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego ought to declare bankruptcy. (Tuesday, Bishop Robert Brom declared plans to file for Chapter 11 protection.) Most of you didn't favor it. Take a look.

March 3 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: Christian bloggers Brian Bailey and Terry Storch have teamed up to write a manual for expanding congregations through blogs on the Web.

OCEANSIDE, Jan. 22 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Anglican cleric visits breakaway parishioners: For those following the ongoing tensions between the U.S. Episcopal Church and conservative congregations who are breaking away from it, the Anglican bishop of Bolivia offers this prediction: It won't be long until the worldwide Anglican Communion replaces the Episcopal Church as its U.S. branch with one more to the liking of conservatives.

Jan. 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: A new book by a New York Daily News journalist is touting premarital chastity as more “vibrant” than promiscuity.

Nov. 18 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Manger scene cast in a new light: Christians are excited about “The Nativity Story,” the latest epic-style faith flick that is turning Hollywood into Holywood. “I give it five stars and two thumbs up,” raves Anne Graham Lotz, Billy Graham's evangelist daughter, who saw it during a preview in North Carolina.

Nov. 11 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
San Diego Episcopal priest a nominee for Diocese of Southern Ohio bishop: The Rev. Robert Certain, a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, is among seven nominees for bishop of Southern Ohio. The election is scheduled for today.

Sep. 23 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Free Korans, DVDs part of outreach: More than 40,000 copies of the Koran and 16,000 DVDs about the life of Muhammad have been ordered through a free public education campaign sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Sep. 9 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Legacy and tragedy: 9/11 service: The San Dieguito Interfaith Ministerial Association will observe both the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and the centennial of Mahatma Gandhi's peace walk with an hour of prayer at 7 p.m. Monday at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. Information: (760) 944-9226.

Sep. 9 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: It will be five years come Monday that San Diego woke up to images of planes flying into the World Trade Center. Before our morning was over, we'd hear about more casualties at the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania.

Aug. 26 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Where the Word meets the turf: Seven years ago, Richard Mena was just beginning to check out the notion of becoming a chaplain for the horse-racing tracks, when he prayed with a young jockey at Fairplex Park in Pomona.

Aug. 7 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Tirade by Mel Gibson poisonous, experts say: Stick and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Not really.

Aug. 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Relocating to Israel: Her mother's voice cracks, and tears well in her eyes. Who can blame her? Her daughter is leaving home, and she's leaving the country. She also may be heading into danger. Very soon, Julie Smith should be on a kibbutz in Israel near the Lebanon border – a place that has become very much in the line of fire.

Aug. 5 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Ordination puts woman, backers at odds with the Catholic Church: In the packed sanctuary of a rented church in Mission Hills, a balding man in a short-sleeved shirt stepped up to the microphone. “Folks,” he began, “I want to welcome you to the revolution.” Then came the applause.

Aug. 5 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Beth Israel rabbi Paul Citrin to leave: Rabbi Paul Citrin has announced he will leave Congregation Beth Israel next June, which means San Diego's largest and oldest synagogue will be looking for its third spiritual leader since 2001.

June 24 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Chivalry buff finds answers in knight life: I got flipped off the other day. Maybe I was following too closely, because the driver ahead of me hit his brakes, glared into the rearview mirror and then gave me an emphatic one-gun salute. He did it with such athletic precision that I figured he had a lot of practice.

June 24 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: If you don't know a Gnostic from a Gentile, here's a book for you. “The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Gnostic Gospels,” by J. Michael Matkin, provides the kind of need-to-know digests that the Idiot's Guide series has perfected.

June 24 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion calendar:

June 24 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Retired minister heads council: A United Church of Christ minister has returned to San Diego to retire – and be the new program director for the Ecumenical Council of San Diego County.

June 24 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religious tracts or phony dollar bills?: When does an evangelistic tract become contraband? A Denton, Texas-based evangelistic ministry and the U.S. Secret Service are locked in a legal dispute over that question after agents seized dozens of packs of tracts resembling million-dollar bills.

June 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
A house divided: He's a man in the middle. A leader who would like to hold both sides together. Yet secession has already begun. It's no wonder James Mathes, the Episcopal bishop of San Diego, quotes Abraham Lincoln. “'In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God,'” Mathes told a recent town-hall-style gathering of Episcopalians, reciting words of Lincoln. “ ... 'It is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party.'”

June 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: You see a television show that really offends you. What Would You Do? Write a letter of complaint to the network. A simple letter – or e-mail – can be a powerful way of promoting change, provided enough like-minded folks also communicate their feelings.

June 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
To the readers ... Currents sections moving:

June 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
'Meeting God' a forum for troops, veterans: No atheists in foxholes? No unbelievers in Hummers? On Saturday morning, a free public forum will be held at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in University City for troops coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan, as well as troops who are about to be deployed, veterans of wars past and spouses of all of the above.

GREENSBORO, N.C., June 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Unheralded South Carolina pastor elected leader of Southern Baptists: Southern Baptists elected a little-known South Carolina pastor Tuesday in an unusual three-way race for leadership of the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

June 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

June 8 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Cinema for the soul: In the 20th century, seekers sought books as their portable pastors, building a library of best-selling balm by the likes of Deepak Chopra and the Dalai Lama, M. Scott Peck and Rabbi Harold Kushner, Marianne Williamson and Norman Vincent Peale. Now, movies are emerging as the scattered sanctuaries for folks who see themselves as more spiritual than religious.

June 8 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: Your friend referred you to a music survey. When you won the survey's drawing for $100, she wanted you to split the prize – or else. What Would You Do? Sharing the winnings would have been gracious, but it was not ethically required. You won the money fair and square, so your so-called friend should grow up, take her lumps and move on.

June 8 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Author Esther Jungreis is guest speaker June 18: Esther Jungreis, Holocaust survivor, best-selling author and well-known champion of Judaism in America, is coming to San Diego on June 18 to speak at Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School's annual scholarship banquet.

June 8 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

VATICAN CITY, June 8 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Vatican: Families under major threat: The Vatican declared Tuesday that the traditional family has never been so threatened as in today's world and lashed out against contraception, abortion, in vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage.

June 1 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: You see someone take an item from a store and tuck it away. What would you do? I've quoted him before and I'll quote him again: as Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for good (people) to do nothing.”

June 1 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 1 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Catholic church fires music director for not renouncing homosexuality: Joseph Nadeau ended his last Sunday Mass at St. Agnes Catholic Church with a wrenching solo of “God Help the Outcasts.” His other life, as the artistic director of one of the nation's largest gay male choirs, had cost him his job.

May 25 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: A person eating nearby at a fast-food restaurant gets up and leaves without cleaning up. When you're finished, you wonder if you ought to follow suit. What would you do? Strictly speaking, it's not your ethical obligation. But it takes little effort to do so, and the next person to sit where you did will appreciate it.

May 25 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
New pastor will guide Bethel Memorial AME: The Rev. C. Dennis Williams is leaving San Diego's oldest African-American church to take over a Los Angeles church whose pastor was removed for the alleged sexual abuse of minors.

May 25 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Four to be ordained priests by Diocese of San Diego: The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego will ordain four new priests next week, though top honors go to the Archdiocese of Newark, which is scheduled to ordain 17 priests Saturday.

May 25 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

May 18 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: When you and your boyfriend rent a car and it's time to return it with a full tank of gas, your boyfriend has you sit in the car and call out when the gas gauge just touches the “full” line, hoping this will save gallons – and dollars. He says he has no way of knowing that he received a car with a truly full tank. What Would You Do?

May 18 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

COVINA, May 18 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Southwestern Baptists' board splits with church over homosexuality issue: The board of the Pacific Southwest region has voted unanimously to break ties with the 1.4 million-member American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., concluding a long dispute over homosexuality.

May 11 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Inner circle: In ancient tradition, people who lived closely connected to the land recognized only two seasons: growing and non-growing. Modern-day Wiccans joke that it's pretty much the same in San Diego: Summer and not summer. Under overcast skies, local Wiccans recently celebrated the changing of seasons during Beltane, one of their major holidays, which ushers in the arrival of a period of life, warmth and growth.

May 11 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: Your friends like to let their 4-year-old boy play naked when they come to visit you in the country. You've got a 9-year-old son who's starting to cringe. What Would You Do? Back-seat parenting is a hazardous act; people can be so prickly.

May 11 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

May 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
For the record:

May 4 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Factions over fiction: It's a wonder Mona Lisa can smile at all. So many secrets to bear. Jesus and Mary Magdalene and their baby. A clandestine society sworn to keep it all covered up. A church forged from fourth-century politics, rather than a first-century Resurrection. “Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false,” Dan Brown writes in “The Da Vinci Code,” a novel rivaling the Bible lately for attention.

May 4 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Catholic church hierarchy lambasted in 'Codes': Four years after the Catholic abuse scandal became part of the national conversation, a priest and two former priests have teamed up on a new book detailing what they say is a trail of violations and denial going back for centuries.

May 4 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Author will discuss growing up Jewish in Iran at May 11 talk at Beth Israel: Iran has been much in the news lately. There is the international attention over whether Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program; news of women there being allowed for the first time to see World Cup soccer matches; continuing fears about the persecution of Baha'is; and the recent call by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hard-line president, for the destruction of Israel.

April 27 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
A healthy spirit: Spiritual transformation is good for you. College students tend to be better adjusted, teenagers are more likely to describe themselves as happy, AIDS patients have had a greater adherence to HIV medications and fathers have better relationships with their partners – particularly if they've undergone spiritual transformations.

April 27 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: You went to a local grocery store for coffee pods for your espresso machine. You always buy the same brand, which retails for $12.99 a can. On this particular trip, however, the price was marked “$4.99” on every can.

April 27 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

LOS ANGELES, April 27 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Thousands noting 100th anniversary of the modern Pentecostal movement: At least 20,000 people from more than 100 countries are here to mark the 100th anniversary of the modern Pentecostal movement.

April 17 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Photo: Easter at sunrise:

April 17 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Joy of Easter celebrants shines through dawn's early darkness: The faithful followed flashlight beams through the predawn darkness into The Flower Fields of Carlsbad yesterday, an annual pilgrimage to worship at sunrise on Easter morning.

April 16 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
The Spirit moves them: Pentecostals are swelling their ranks worldwide: Draeh Hancock was on the floor of Faith Chapel Church of God in Christ in San Diego, sweating and shaking and speaking in a language she didn't understand. And she couldn't have been happier.

April 13 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
The virtue of sacrifice: Christians will tell you that the crucifixion of Jesus is the most moving story of sacrifice in their Bible. He is beaten and tortured, hung on a cross to die. He does not fight back. He asks that those who did it be forgiven.

April 13 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Author: We have the tools; we know how to behave: Once upon a time, people were mean to each other. There was fighting and selfishness and suffering.

April 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Ethics and reality: Sitting in his Wednesday evening class on business law and ethics, a 28-year-old MBA student confesses that he's used his company's printer to print out all his class papers. He'd like to think the class will help him to be ethical, “but I'm not too keen on buying a printer,” he said, to the laughter of others in the class.

April 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Immigration issue, march draw faith-based backing: San Diego's interfaith community will gather for a prayer service on the steps of St. Joseph Catholic Cathedral Sunday afternoon before joining up with what is anticipated to be a massive march in support of “humane” immigration reform.

April 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Group to meet in cemetery chapel: A small group of worshippers who were part of St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Oceanside before it broke away from the diocese earlier this year will begin holding services Sunday in Grace Chapel at All Saints' Cemetery.

April 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

March 30 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Monastery of the mind: On the first day of spring, the arrival of a season that brings more light and new growth, Bo Lozoff took his guitar and his message of spiritual transformation behind the locked doors of an Otay Mesa jail. Since the 1970s, this slender man from North Carolina, who wears cowboy boots as dress shoes, estimates he's been to 800 jails and prisons on behalf of his nonprofit Prison-Ashram Project.

March 30 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: A colleague received a thank-you note from a customer and was just beaming. It got you thinking about the last time you did something like that. What Would You Do? Here's some advice from Michael Josephson of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Los Angeles: “Make it a point to tell at least one person every week what you appreciate about them.

March 30 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

March 30 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
SDSU conference will explore impact of climate change on 'Global Justice': The social issues surrounding global warming will be explored in a free, two-day conference next week hosted by San Diego State University's Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs.

March 23 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
A watchful eye: It's been nearly three months since she came to City Hall to help Enron-by-the-Sea find its moral compass. This isn't the first time Jo Anne SawyerKnoll has been asked what she thinks of San Diego's ethics. Where to begin? There's the ongoing pension scandal, the fallout over the bribery trial of two now-former council members and revelations of thousands of e-mail messages being deleted by the former city manager.

March 23 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: Your boss is drinking on the job. You've tried talking to him, but he just flared up at you. What Would You Do? The best option that honors your commitment to your employer is to go to his supervisor. Hopefully, the company will take corrective steps to protect the boss and the company from the harmful effects of his behavior.

March 23 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Diocese sets up HIV/AIDS retreat: The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego will host a one-day retreat for men and women with HIV or AIDS on April 1 at Our Lady of Sacred Heart in City Heights.

March 23 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

March 16 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Indian inroads: When Vinod Kumar first came to the United States from India in the 1980s, Americans would ask him if he ate monkey brains. The movie “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” was all the rage, along with its memorable Indian banquet scene featuring chilled monkey brains for dessert.

March 16 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: You have a friend who lies about some things, and you're wondering if you can trust him in other matters. What Would You Do? There is a big difference, ethically speaking, between telling an occasional lie and being a chronic liar.

March 16 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Anti-war interfaith prayer service and park procession will be held Sunday: An interfaith coalition of religious leaders will lead a public peace pilgrimage to Balboa Park Sunday to mark the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and to call for an end to the war.

March 16 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

March 9 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

March 2 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Past can present a future: Tomorrow, Randy “Duke” Cunningham will go to court and find out where he'll spend the next part of his life. The safe bet is federal prison, punishment for taking $2.4 million in bribes as a U.S. congressman. In the last week of November, Cunningham pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion charges in connection with efforts to steer government work to defense contractors.

March 2 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: You're applying for a new job as a database administrator. You're currently a software engineer, but due to layoffs, you've been performing most of your department's database-related projects for almost a year now.

March 2 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
National Cathedral's dean to speak at La Jolla service: The Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, installed last year as the newest dean of the Washington National Cathedral, will be in town next week to talk about the historic house of prayer in the nation's capital.

March 2 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Feb. 23 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
The joy of dying: The plane is heading for Tulsa. Peanuts have been handed out, followed by the predictable flurry of fingers tearing at the red foil edges. I am less certain of the flurry that awaits my arrival. Last I heard, my Aunt Mary Lue was paralyzed on her right side and couldn't speak.

Feb. 23 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Committees split over creating eruv: The La Jolla Shores Advisory Board voted Tuesday to recommend approval of creating an eruv for Orthodox Jewish Congregation Adat Yeshurun.

Feb. 18 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
For the record:

Feb. 16 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Line of duty: Some weekends, Orin Green just wants to carry an umbrella. “It doesn't rain very often in San Diego,” said Green. “But sometimes it's just nice to have one.” Green is president of Chabad of University City, which strictly follows traditional, Orthodox Jewish laws, including the prohibition of work on the Sabbath. Carrying an umbrella qualifies as work.

Feb. 9 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Cheaters ever prosper?: As the Winter Games prepare to open tomorrow in Italy, we turn our attention to the U.S. Olympics Committee's newest advertising slogan: Real Athletes Play Fair. To which Bruce Svare, director of the National Institute for Sports Reform in New York, replies: “I think it's blowing a lot of smoke.”

Feb. 9 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly offerings: A friend was recently released from prison after serving several years for a very bad mistake, for which he takes full responsibility. Since being a free man, he has made a good-faith effort to become a contributing member of the community. You're not sure, though, how to treat him. What Would You Do?

Feb. 2 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Belief systems: Most of the 100,000 or so Jewish people in San Diego County don't go to synagogue regularly, light Sabbath candles or keep kosher. But they feel strongly about their Jewish identity. These demographics are helping fuel new ventures within Judaism here – with multiple goals of increasing participation and providing continuing education.

Feb. 2 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
St. Anne's Church votes to quit Episcopal Diocese: St. Anne's Church in Oceanside has become the second congregation in two months to break away from the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego as part of an unfolding national rift over homosexuality, theology and biblical authority.

Jan. 19 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: When a telemarketer calls during dinnertime, you keep them on the phone for a long time, leading them to believe you're going to buy whatever it is they're trying to sell. Then at the last minute, you tell them you've changed your mind and hang up. Your wife disapproves of this behavior. What Would You Do?

Jan. 19 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Jan. 19 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Local temple slowly rises from the ashes: Two months after a fire damaged the roof and contents of Nhu Lai Thien Tu temple in City Heights, smoke still fills the air.

Jan. 12 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Caution: Merge ahead: Ray Kurzweil made a name for himself predicting our technological future. He foresaw the World Wide Web and a time when a computer would beat a human at chess. Bill Gates calls him "the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence."

Jan. 12 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: You bought your girlfriend a very expensive, top-of-the-line nose and ear-hair trimmer for her birthday. You thought this would be a nice way of bringing to her attention a personal hygiene issue she doesn't seem to be aware of. But she told you to leave and then broke up with you. She also won't return the gift. What Would You Do?

Jan. 12 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Activism was no laughing matter: In the early 1960s, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. asked popular comedian Dick Gregory to do a benefit for the civil rights movement. Gregory did the fundraiser, then he stayed the next day and marched with King.

Jan. 12 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Jan. 5 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: The other day you noticed that a popular fast-food restaurant now sells a hamburger with not one, not two, but three extra-large patties – with cheese! You're outraged that a company would sell something so unhealthy at a time when our population is fatter than ever. What Would You Do?

Jan. 5 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Dec. 29 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Highlights & lowlifes: One reader drew a frowning face at the top of his moral report card, which about sums up a year of FEMA flubs, political scandals and ongoing culture wars that remind us we all can't get along very well for very long. Our discomfort with each other came through in a printed message at the bottom of a ballot sent in from East County: "If I give my name, you might put it in the paper. I have to live with my neighbors."

Dec. 29 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Faith-based humanitarian efforts earn Bono a spot on Time magazine's cover: When Elvis Presley shook hands with Richard Nixon in 1970, it wasn't much more than a fleeting photo op.

Dec. 29 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Dec. 25 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Mixed-faith family juggles traditions: Ashley Duck is getting a new bicycle today. Her parents had no problem agreeing on that. What they couldn't agree on was when their 12-year-old daughter should receive the shiny, smoke-gray Raleigh mountain bike. For Christmas? Or for Hanukkah?

Dec. 22 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Curtain call: On Sunday morning, the Rev. Mikel Taxer will climb into the pulpit to preach his final Christmas sermon as pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church. He says he will not be sentimental. Though it may be hard not to be. When he retires next month, Taxer will leave the first and only church he has ever served.

Dec. 22 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: By now, you've probably heard that some churches in the country – including the massive Willow Creek Community Church outside Chicago – are not having services this coming Sunday. They're closed for Christmas.

Dec. 22 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

ALPINE, Dec. 19 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Alpine Episcopal rift confirmed by separate worship services: There are two churches, where there once was one. In the morning chill of East County, the two congregations gathered separately yesterday, a mile apart. Each had candles marking the final Sunday of Advent. Each had Communion. They even sang the same hymn.

Dec. 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Spiritual or spectacle?: Elvis sang "Blue Christmas," thousands of programmed white lights danced on a hillside above a scene of Bethlehem, kids slid down trucked-in snow, and carolers sang against a backdrop of holiday movies. Oh, and don't forget the camels. Mary Kalin was impressed.

Dec. 8 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Myth master: He was an Oxford Anglican who became a darling of evangelical Christians. His books about his faith have become required reading in seminaries and manuals to believers. But it's his fantasy series for children that made the name of C.S. Lewis most famous.

Dec. 8 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Is 'Narnia' religious? Yes and no: 'The Passion of the Christ" was an Easter offering for masses of Christians swept up in a graphic portrayal of how Jesus suffered and died for their sins.

Dec. 1 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Moral Report Card: It's time to prepare Religion & Ethics' annual moral report card. This is your chance to grade some of society's conduct for 2005. Did we pass or fail, stumble or shine?

Dec. 1 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Group seeks volunteer aid for Biloxi residents: What are you doing for Christmas? Phil Harris is hoping to persuade some of you to go to Biloxi, Miss., with him to help repair 20 homes so 20 families will be in them by Christmas Day.

Nov. 24 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Nov. 17 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Service stations: Yoga with the cantor. Dinner by candlelight. Kids in pajamas snuggling up to a video. This is the Jewish Sabbath? Under a national program modeled after the multi-screen theater concept, a growing number of synagogues are taking a leap of faith that if they offer multiple choices, more Jewish people will come.

Nov. 17 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: A friend is having an affair; his wife also is your friend and you feel that you're being disloyal to her by keeping this information to yourself. What Would You Do?

Nov. 3 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Anne Rice's rebirth: She breathed life into vampires and witches with blood-curdling passion and dabbled in soft-porn with an erotic series about Sleeping Beauty. Now, Anne Rice is fixated on the boy Jesus. Her new book, "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," was released this week, taking readers into a fictional account of the young Messiah, capturing the junior years that are conspicuously absent from the Gospels.

Nov. 3 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Oct. 27 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Mind over flatware: The stereo played "What a Wonderful World," white icicle lights hung from the walls and Cathryne Bruce-Johnson stood inside a circle of chairs asking silently for the silver-colored skewer she was holding to bend.

Oct. 20 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Embryonic state: Anyone with children knows what that first year brings. Learning to crawl. Gingerly standing up. Trying to walk. The same goes for tackling the ethics issues of California's fledgling, embryonic stem cell venture.

Oct. 20 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: You are married and had a one-night stand last weekend during a business trip. One night, your spouse asked you out of the blue, "Would you ever cheat on me?" What Would You Do?

Oct. 20 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Money for research has yet to flow: While Proposition 71 was supposed to turn on the state spigot to counter the federal drought, court challenges have blocked funding – at least for now.

Oct. 20 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Oct. 13 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Pulpit and profit: After helping "The Passion of the Christ" set box-office records, evangelical Christians are turning their attention to a new film they hope will become another pop culture tool for old-fashioned evangelism.

Oct. 13 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: It's time to think about saying thank you. To look at the part of the glass that's half full, not the part that's half empty. Each year, Currents turns over its Thanksgiving Day cover to letters from readers about what they're grateful for in their lives.

Oct. 13 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Religion and ethics calendar:

Oct. 13 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Churches, musicians to join for concert to benefit Gulf Coast hurricane relief: Churches and Christian musicians from around San Diego County are teaming up to put on a hurricane relief benefit concert tomorrow night that also will feature testimonials from displaced Gulf Coast residents.

Oct. 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
The fabric of prayer: One is a ministry that makes quilts with threads hanging from them so churchgoers can say prayers for the recipients and tie a knot as a reminder of hope and love. Another is a mitzvah, acts of human kindness involving an ever-growing tapestry that becomes like a giant prayer shawl during the High Holy Days for those in need of God's comfort.

Sep. 29 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Weekly Offerings: The other day a friend bought a few plums from the local grocer and munched them while watching a football game on TV. After several visits to the bathroom, he called the grocer to explain the problem his produce caused him and wanted a refund.

Sep. 22 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Belief & relief: He's a pastor of a modest congregation in Normal Heights, a sixth-generation Mississippian, who mourns the loss of two Gulf Coast churches he used to serve. Together, they formed Operation Baby Buggy to collect children's items to take to Hancock County, a rural area in southern Mississippi that got slammed by Hurricane Katrina.

Sept. 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
For Their Benefit: For Their Benefit is a weekly listing of activities sponsored by nonprofit organizations to raise funds for programs that serve San Diegans.

Sept. 15 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Volunteers: Opportunities on the Internet eldercare.uniontrib.com/srzone/volunteers.cfm

RANCHO PENASQUITOS, Sep. 12 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
At 9/11 service, religious leaders promote peace: They wore ministerial collars, turbans or flowing robes, reflecting the world's religions.