Today we’re looking at the religious aspects of Howl and Phaedrus, and how those affect and are affected by the rhetorical goals and strategies in each piece.

To kick us off, I bring you a passage or two from Andrew M. Greeley’s 1986 novel: God Game:

… the little kid’s plea, “Momma, tell me a story,” is really a desperate plea for meaning. The astonishing. amazing, and confusing phenomena which impinge on the child’s consciousness seem inexplicable, chaotic, terrifying. Momma’s story puts some order into the confusion, some cosmos into the chaos. Religion in its raw and elemental manifestation plays a “momma” function: it tells stories which suggest that there is order in the confusion, meaning in the terror, cosmos in the chaos. Religion, in short, is a cosmos-creating activity or it isn’t worth a damn and isn’t even religion. (pg. 8)

And one more:

Every theologian is a storyteller and every story is about God, one way or another, despite what the local Cardinal of your choice might tell you. (pp. 16-17)

Greeley is a Catholic priest, a professor of sociology at the University of Arizona, and an unimaginably prolific author of fiction and non-fiction.

Check this out! BoingBoing is reporting that a group of sixth graders in Sweden have filed a complaint against Toys R Us alleging that the 2008 “Christmas catalogue featured “outdated gender roles because boys and girls were shown playing with different types of toys, whereby the boys were portrayed as active and the girls as passive.” Is that awesome or what?

The article continues:

The group’s teacher explained to the local Smålandsposten newspaper that filing the complaint was the culmination of more than two years of “long-term work” by the students on gender roles.

Thumbing through the catalogue, 13-year-old Hannes Psajd explained that he and his twin sister had always shared the same toys and that he was concerned about the message sent by the Toys”R”Us publication.

“Small girls in princess stuff…and here are boys dressed as super heroes. It’s obvious that you get affected by this,” he told the newspaper.

“When I see that only girls play with certain things then, as a guy, I don’t want it.”