Sure, Charles Glassenberg could just get his lulav and etrog from his synagogue, but he prefers to go hard core and get them from the Israel Book Shop in Brookline:

... This is one of my relatively few annual encounters with the most Orthodox part of the Jewish community, and it is always an interesting one. The gentlemen are curt but polite as they deal with a guy (me) who is obviously not frum. In recent years I've brought Roxanne with me, and she finds the whole scene fascinating. This world of men in beards black hats haggling in Yiddish, Hebrew and English over lumpy lemons is a world away from her temple nursery school's neat and tidy world of Conservative Judaism. ...

But instead, Good Girl Gone reports the two large signs right in the middle of BU's Marsh Plaza warning people to accept Jesus or they'll burn in hell actually made her feel good:

... Clearly, according to the two people holding those signs, I am destined to go to hell, simply because I'm Jewish. But what I got from this experience, was a sense of contentment with my own religion. In Judaism, we would never tell someone that by simply not believing a certain principle, they will end up in hell. ...

Michael Paulsen reports, posts video of the event on Boston Common today.

Pahkcah02 reports that while her rabbi in Stoughton discussed Aaron Feurstein (you know, the Malden Mills guy) in his Rosh Hashanah sermon, her sister's rabbi down in Baltimore discussed the life of Samuel "the Chief" Levine of Boston - who was both a ward boss under James Michael Curley and her great uncle. His life gives one a chance to reflect on what sort of life you want to lead in the year ahead, she writes.

Scott Pomfret, author of Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir, reports he is no longer welcome as a volunteer at St. Anthony's Shrine in Downtown Crossing, despite eight years of service, because of the publicity surrounding his book. Also, the shrine has disbanded its GLBT Spirituality Group:

... Wednesday, Sept. 17, I went to the Shrine for the regularly scheduled meeting of the GLBT Spirituality Group, which met every third Wednesday of the month. As soon as I entered the Shrine's lobby, I knew something was amiss. Our little paper rainbow flags that point the way to the meeting room were absent.

When I got to the meeting room, the door was half-closed. A sign taped to the door indicated that the Lay Ministry Training Committee was meeting. The Committee trains new lectors and Eucharistic ministers. I have been an important member of this group for five years. Yet I was given no notice of the meeting. I instantly realized I had been deliberately excluded. ...

Via Sam Baltrusis.

Down in Washington, Michael Paulson notices how many Bostonians are inscribed on the walls at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception's Memorial Hall. Being a reporter, he gets to the bottom of why "the list of donors read like a Boston-area phone directory."

Sushiesque photographs a madonna-less blue bathtub in Somerville.

NECN reports on efforts to have a Worcester woman who died in 2007 be declared a saint.

Also see: Little Audrey Santo's Official Web Site.

Skater dude tries to mock street preacher yelling to an audience of, apparently, nobody, on Tremont by the Common, but the preacher guy wasn't taking the bait and dude runs out of mocking moves after awhile, so it's probably a good thing a Boston park ranger pulled up and told him to knock it off because by then he was just sort of standing there like a lamer, even if you do have to wonder if park rangers have nothing better to do than drive on the sidewalk.

Boston Spirit reports on gay Muslims in the Boston area:

... I met Faisal Alam at a Back Bay coffee shop on a visit from his current home of Atlanta. He was born of Pakistani parents in Germany and raised in Europe, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan before moving with his family to the United States when he was 10.

In 1997 he came out to himself—in a big way. "I exploded out of the closet," he told me, almost knocking over his coffee cup, talking of nights spent at Campus, Manray, Buzz, and Club Cafe. ...

Via Articles of Faith.