A federal judge ruled last week that the long-disputed cross atop Mt. Soledad, overlooking San Diego and the Pacific, can stay. The Los Angeles Times reports:

“The court finds the memorial at Mt. Soledad, including its Latin cross, communicates the primarily nonreligious messages of military service, death and sacrifice,” wrote U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns in his decision filed Tuesday. “As such, despite its location on public land, the memorial is constitutional.”

At the Vincent house, we’re excited: You see, my husband’s grandfather Engineman First Class Howard Nash — we called him “Pop” before he died in 1997 — is memorialized on Mt. Soledad. Pop served on minesweeper during World War II. He wasn’t a religious man, but he admired the Mt. Soledad Memorial, which he could see from his home while he lived. We’re pleased that the memory of his wartime service will be, at least for the time being, honored in his death.

One big drag about leftists is their complete intolerance for criticism. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn would learn that lesson more vividly than most. In major front battles during World War II, the former Red Army officer earned two decorations for bravery. But in 1945, he was arrested after criticizing Joseph Stalin in a letter to a friend, and spent the next eight years in a Soviet gulag. That experience provided the grist for his most famous work, The Gulag Archipelago, an expose of the Soviet prison system.

Solzhenitsyn, who was raised by his mother in the Russian Orthodox faith, passed away on Sunday. Here’s the BBC’s coverage of the Nobel laureate’s life and death. And here’s an Acton Institute review of The Solzhenitsyn Reader (2006), a collection of his writings that reveal “his deeply religious view of things.” As a writer, I particularly love Solzhenitsyn’s view of those involved in creative arts: He understood the artist as one who “recognizes above himself a higher power and joyfully works as a humble apprentice under God’s heaven.”

Good morning!

Today’s quote: “The first step on the way to victory is to recognize the enemy.”

There is a movie my husband and I have seen at least 30 times: Tombstone. I’m not sure why we like it so much — it’s definitely not the best movie ever made. Still, we can nearly quote the whole script, saying what Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Johnny Ringo, and Curly Bill Brocious say before they say it (again.)

I suspect it’s Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday who makes the film. Also, the script features some of the best movie lines ever, many of them for Doc.

Example: Near a wooded creek, after a vicious gunfight in which Earp (Kurt Russell) kills head bad guy Curly Bill, a minor character asks Doc why he’s involved at all in hunting down the notorious gang, the Cowboys, who murdered Earp’s younger brother.

Turkey Creek Jack Johnson: Why you doin’ this, Doc?
Holliday: ‘Cause Wyatt Earp is my friend.
Turkey Creek Jack Johnson: Friend?…I got lots of friends.
Holliday: I don’t.

What are some of your favorite movie lines ever? (Remember to give us context!)

I did not grow up sucking on a silver spoon. More like a rusty spoon. So along the way, I had jobs that built character…and put gas in the tank of my used 1978 Toyota Celica: In Alabama, I was a counter-girl at a now-defunct burger joint called Burger Chef. The claim to fame there was to be able to take orders for a whole busload of people without writing them down. (This came in handy years later when I had to juggle information as an air traffic controller.) (See? One never knows…)

I also waited tables at a little short-order restaurant the size of a trolley car, run by a Canadian chef. It was about like a Waffle House (only smaller and dingier), but the chef claimed to be a Cordon Bleu alum and ran the place with an iron spatula.

As a poor college student, I served cocktails to other, equally poor college students at a bar called “Drayton Place.” (har har) Due to our mutual poverty, I did not rack up a lot of tips, except on quarter beer night. But I did want to burn my clothes each evening since they smelled like the inside of an ashtray.

Speaking of smells: My worst teenage job by far was cleaning the public restrooms at a big county park/campground. But I bet some of you farm-country people can top that. What’s the worst job you ever had?

My husband took our sweet Boxer, Kylie, to the vet this week. Her hips are breaking down, and it’s only a matter of time before we have to put her down. This is the most loving dog you can imagine. When she could stand more easily, she would walk over to wherever you were sitting, rest her chin on your leg, and stay there as long as you’d let her. Also, when anyone in the house is giving anyone else a hug, she yodels and wags her tail until you pet her, too. Now her world is mainly her bed and a path to her water bowl. Very sad.

We’ve always had Boxers (Kylie makes our third.) But when she goes, my husband and I are thinking about getting a small dog, maybe a miniature Yorkie or Schnauzer. A Yorkie, though, might become an hors d’œuvre for the hawks and coyotes that haunt the canyon behind our house. And I’ve heard mini Schnauzers are imperious little creatures who will tear up your throw pillows if they feel slighted.

Then there’s the whole slobbery big dog/yappy small dog debate. What’s your dog preference/recommendation?

Here’s a link to some funny observations kids have about God (I once saw a whole book of these):

Dear God: If you made the sun and the moon and the stars you must have had lots of equipment.

Dear God: Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones why don’t you just keep the ones you have now?

Dear God: How come you only have 10 rules and our school has millions?

Any gems to add from your own kids’ lips?

Finally! Frank in Phoenix has submitted a bio for Meet the Regulars…And I have finally posted it.

 Check it out!

Staying on the theme of my Personal Note from yesterday, tell us how you came to your current faith — whether you are a Christian, of another faith, agnostic, or atheist (believing in unbelief.) Who or what was most influential on your current belief system? How far back can you trace your spiritual heritage?

(For a really great example of a story of spiritual heritage, see Llama’s post #4 on yesterday’s Personal Note.)

Coming up later this summer, WORLD is doing a retrospective on the summer of 1968, a season of gritty political turmoil that, interestingly, was also a season of spiritual revival. My part of the package is a look at the Calvary Chapel movement in Southern California that summer, and its place in the larger “Jesus Movement” of the era. Last week, as part of my research, I visited the Mother Ship — Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, and senior pastor Chuck Smith, Sr.

For me, the visit was also personal. You see, I consider Pastor Chuck my “spiritual grandfather,” to coin a term I once heard someone else coin. For our interview, we settled into flower-cushioned rattan patio chairs in the tiny enclosed lanai attached to Pastor Chuck’s office. Very California — as was Pastor Chuck, who as a young pastor, took midday surfing breaks, but now settles for dressing in aloha shirts and chinos.

The first thing you notice about Chuck Smith is his resonant baritone voice. The second thing, if you were to meet him today, is that at age 81, his face is remarkably unlined, save for the laugh crinkles around his eyes. Having read many testimonies of hippies who came to faith through his ministry in the late 60’s and early 70’s, that seems fitting: Universally, those new Christians — many of whom were not allowed in other churches because of their dirty bare feet and, um, natural, odor — testified that they were drawn by the simple joy that seemed to emanate from Pastor Chuck.

Forty years later, I can say that I am a beneficiary of Pastor Chuck’s joy and a spiritual descendant of his ministry, one that began with a struggling congregation of 25. It is a ministry that bloomed — then exploded — through his insistence on introducing young people to a God of grace, and on practical, line-by-line exposition of the Scriptures in an era when canned topical sermons were more common. There are now about 1,000 Calvary Chapel affiliates in the U.S. alone — all of them independent of the Mother Ship — along with thousands more overseas (At last count, 1,000 in India. Gospel for Asia claims 20,000 house churches.)

Since I knew my spiritual lineage back through Pastor Chuck, I got curious about going back farther

“How did you get saved?” I asked him, thinking that maybe my spiritual great-grandfather was somebody like Billy Graham….

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