Enthusiasm

THE CHURCH is full of beauty and peace. But I'm not. I am attending a Protestant service in a downtown historic church.But there aren't many worshipers. Where are they? Oh, sure, it's still hot and there are a lot of people on vacation. Attendance in this city church has been going down for years, they say.The organist is playing the lovely ''Ode To Joy.''And I am wondering why I'm not more joyous. Perhaps it is because I talked with a Russian friend just back from Vilnius, Lithuania, where she attended a church service.

MERCHANTVILLE, N.J. -- When Dr. Lance Gooberman set out to market "rapid heroin detoxification" to middle-class addicts along the East Coast, he came up with an ingenious strategy. He posted billboards along roads leading out of town.His strategy worked. In just two years, he has treated 1,000 addicts, many of them suburbanites who saw the signs after completing deals in the drug markets of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Camden and Newark, N.J."We're targeting suburbanites," said Gooberman, who operates a full-time "detox" practice in this crusty small town just miles from the drug markets of Camden and Philadelphia.

New York Mets pitcher David Cone allegedly lured two women into the bullpen area of Shea Stadium in 1989 and masturbated in front of them, a lawsuit filed yesterday said.The suit, filed in state Supreme Court in Rockland County, N.Y., is an amendment to a suit filed by three Rockland women last year accusing Cone of harassment and slander.The women were identified in the suit as Phyllis DeLucia of West Nyack, Debra Hittelman of Spring Valley and Joan Twohie of Wesley Hills, all 28.The suit also alleged that later in the 1989 season Cone went to a hotel where two of the women were staying and jumped into bed with them.

Earlier this month, assistant coach Luke Murray was traveling with Towson University's basketball team, psyching himself up for a win, when he got a text message from his dad. "I think you guys should all go bowling," the text read. "I think all you guys as a team should just go bowling. " While not practical advice, it was true to the spirit of Luke's father, Bill. Yes, that Bill Murray, the almost surrealistically wry, one-of-a-kind comedian and actor. And it was not necessarily a bad or whimsical idea.

Karen Colvin's disability enabled her to tap her greatest 0) talentBy age 14, Karen Colvin knew she wanted to help the handicapped. She didn't know, however, she would wind up a member of the group she was helping."

ELVIS told me to go to Chicken Out. A sleek, black cat named Elvis, that is. He lives next door to friends who bring home food from Chicken Out often. Every time they do, the King yowls at their back door, frantic for some of that rotisserie chicken. Having the utmost respect for any feline's opinion, I went to the Gaithersburg-based chain's attractive wood-and-tile outpost in Pikesville to see what Elvis was howling about. He has his reasons; the chicken was good - tender to the point of falling off the bones.

There are many rooms in the Charlestown retirement community in Catonsville, but none of them are louder than the new fitness center, where — with a mix of music and timely movements — Zumba instructor Robin Rouse keeps residents on their toes, and off them. "I truly think that Zumba is for everyone," said Rouse, a licensed instructor who teaches at several senior facilities. "The only way to work on balance is to be off-balance. " How it got started: Charlestown began offering Zumba classes about a year ago. After the instructor left last June, Rouse stepped in and started teaching the class, which is held every Friday.

The moment Rose DeWitt Bukater lifts her heavily beaded evening gown and steps her embroidered satin slipper on the railing of a doomed ocean liner, she starts a movie's action and brings to Technicolor life an emerging fashion trend."

Tall Ships Down, by Daniel S. Parrott. McGraw Hill. 224 pages. $24.95. There is something endlessly fascinating about shipwrecks, as this book so admirably demonstrates. To think that a man-made object as large as a ship, sailed by a trained crew, fitted out with the latest technology, can suddenly come to woe and vanish beneath the waves almost defies explanation. Well, maybe. The ocean bottom is littered with wrecks, some of which came to rest there as a result of sudden freakish weather conditions, roaring storms or rogue waves.

Drifting lower in sluggish trading, stocks eased 24 points yesterday. The Dow Jones average closed at 2,961.98 with one local broker commenting, "there's no avalanche of selling, just a lack of buying enthusiasm."MARKET WATCH (in proportion received): "Without question, the major concern is the lofty valuation level of the most popular stocks. The S&P 500 and DJ 30 industrials stand at 18 times earnings, well above the market's normal 12 to 15 P/E range. And dividends are now 3.2 percent vs. seven percent in 1982."