Congregations which traditionally gather around piles of bread, fruit and vegetables to sing "We plough the fields and scatter" will be asked to acknowledge their "selfishness in not sharing the earth's bounty fairly". They may also apologise for "our failure to protect resources for others" and for "inequality and oppression in the earth".

The new prayers are contained in the latest addition to the liturgy, the Common Worship: Times and Seasons, which is expected to be approved by the General Synod meeting in York tomorrow.

On a less serious note, managers out of touch with reality put their own interests first — Ken Lay, Richard Scrushy and Dennis Kozlowski come to mind. None of these supposed leaders demonstrated o­ne iota of humility, and, in the process, ran their businesses into the ground. By contrast, leaders such as Colleen Barrett of Southwest Airlines, along with her leadership team, have created a culture of humility, o­ne that springs from concern for others as a means of building a people-centric organization.

- 38% of the 128 million Internet users have sent and received email with spiritual content.
- 35% have sent or received o­nline greeting cards related to religious holidays.
- 32% have gone o­nline to read news accounts of religious events and affairs.
- 21% have sought information about how to celebrate religious holidays.
- 17% have looked for information about where they could attend religious services.

Those who use the Internet for religious or spiritual purposes are more likely to be women, white, middle aged, college educated, and relatively well-to-do.

University of Arizona astronomer Christopher Impey beat out applicants at 200 other universities for a three-year $275,000 Templeton Foundation grant to host a dialogue in Tucson about how life elsewhere would challenge human spirituality o­n the third planet from the sun.

The lecture series, "Astrobiology and the Sacred: Implications of Life Beyond Earth," will include up to five keynote lectures by "Nobel-Prize-level" speakers and up to 10 other speakers.

No dates have been set, and Impey is working to secure lecturers.