Usually people write because they disagree with something I’ve written. But lately I’ve gotten positive mail, and I’m not sure how to handle it. : If They Like Me, I Must Be Doing It Wrong

DEAR ABBY:

I have a problem and I’m hoping you can help. A psychiatrist might say it’s an identity crisis. But why should I cough up the bucks when I can write to you?

Besides, perhaps only you can help. This is awkward, but, well . . . last night I dreamed that I was turning into you! (Or if not you, perhaps your sister, Ann.)

No offense, but this was spooky. Before you get some strange thoughts in your noggin, let me make one thing emphatically clear: I’m a guy. I’m all guy, all the time. To paraphrase O.J.--and no matter what, he was one hell of a running back--I’m absolutely, 100% not female. I’m a man trapped in a man’s body. OK, so maybe I think Judy Garland was pretty neat, but lots of heterosexuals do. So we’re not talking gender confusion. No, sir. I mean, ma’am.

No, the confusion stems from my profession.

You see, like you, I’m a newspaper columnist. Sometimes I get letters. Usually people write because they disagree with something I’ve written. But lately I’ve gotten positive mail, and I’m not sure how to handle it.

For example, I wrote a column about how Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon, a devout Mormon, was mulling proposals for a constitutional amendment to allow organized school prayer.

Julianne Weight of Canoga Park responded by e-mail:

I want to thank you for your article in today’s Times. It isn’t often that Mormons get ‘good press,’ and your article was thoughtful.

As a Mormon and Christian, my feeling about school prayer is this: If there is anything the religious right believes belongs in the venue of the family and not that of the schools (remember the recent articles on school breakfast?), it should be prayer.

Schools already spend far too much time on non-academic matters and this is only adding one more. If a family doesn’t pray at home--together or separately--praying in school is hardly going to be meaningful to a child, is it? I liken this to parents who feel their children should have some religious training, so they drop them off at church and pick them up when it’s over (or send them with neighbors). If a family DOES pray at home, why does a child then need to pray at school?

I find it ironic that fundamental Christians won’t feed children breakfast because that’s the responsibility of the family--but they’ll scream for prayers in school.

Now, Abby, this letter may have arrived via the ‘Net, but it’s so chock-full of old-fashioned, down-to-Earth common sense that I had to wonder if it was really meant for me. It reminds me of some mail you get.

And that wasn’t the only such letter prompted by the musings on school prayer. In that column, I theorized that my difficulty in falling asleep may have something to do with the bedtime prayer I learned in childhood--the one known for the chilling passage “If I should die before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.”

Now, just as one of your readers might, Joyce Kline of Lancaster chimed in with a description of how her husband revised the bedtime prayer for their children:

Now I lay me down to sleep,

Pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep,

Keep me through the long, long night,

Wake me with the morning bright.

Kline added: My children liked it much better--it wasn’t nearly so scary.

All of that was typewritten. As a postscript, Mrs. Kline included this handwritten note: They always said, “God bless everybody, Amen” as an ending. They’re teaching this new version to their children, too.

All these sweet, feel-good, upbeat, God-bless-us-every-one sentiments make me nervous. And how do you argue with someone who wants to feed hungry children? Such letters, I’m sure, are the source of my nightmares. Where is the rancor? Why aren’t these people picking a fight? What good is it to print letters when my only response can be, “Thank you for writing. Blah blah blah”?

If this keeps up, I’ll have no choice but to write more columns advocating strict gun control for everybody except illegal immigrants.

Abby, I’m at the end of my rope. What ever should I do?

Sign me,

CHATTERING IN CHATSWORTH

P.S.--Just curious. What was your favorite Judy Garland movie?

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Calif. 91311. Please include a phone number. Address TimesLink or Prodigy e-mail to YQTU59A ( via the Internet: YQTU59A@prodigy.com).

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