Civility

People here talk about the weather a lot.

You hear it everywhere—amongst the people gathered for coffee at the Dairy Queen, at the hardware store, at church, in the average phone conversation. The other day, as my wife and I were taking our son for a stroller ride around town, we passed a powerwalking middle-aged lady who, after the customary and sufficient exchange of “Hi”s, for some reason felt it necessary to call back to us over her shoulder from a significant distance back down the sidewalk to give her opinion of the fine weather.

It used to annoy me to no end, how people would comment on the weather that we could all see clearly enough without the play-by-play commentary. Then one day I realized that this is a farming-dependent region, and nearly everyone, no matter their current residence or means of making a living, was separated from an agrarian lifestyle by only a generation or two at most; therefore, the weather was indeed an issue of concern socially, and as such was certainly worth talking about. These days, I don’t mind a discussion of the weather, unless its purpose is solely to have something safe to say to someone with whom we have little relationship. I guess I’ve always been a little contrary.

Talking about the weather is just one example of those social conventions which we variably call courtesy, etiquette, or politeness. I’ve heard many anthropologists and sociologists explain social politeness as the way we interact with strangers to keep from killing them (although my murderous tendencies are aroused more by the banal application of the superficialities of politeness than by its complete absence). These conventions are intended to create or, at the least, mimic civility.

We used to have civility, in the deepest sense of the word (citizenship, belonging, a sense of being a part of a place and a people, from the Latin civis, “citizen”), simply by needing one another and living in community. This was generally the way of things since the dawn of band-level societies until mass-migration, mass-production, and mass-media converged during the Industrial Age, culminating in the mid-twentieth century in creating a truly mass culture. The dominant modi of “culture” have moved from the local and specific to the widespread and general. We now experience the social necessity of politeness, since we lack so much in familiarity.

It was due to and during this convergence of mass influences that we began our shift from being members of functioning communities to being members of the general public. The meta-shifts of the late Industrial Age—from agrarian to industrial, from rural to urban, from agriculture to agribusiness, from competent self-sufficiency to wage-earning dependency, from multi-generationalism to the “nuclear family”—brought about a situation in which hundreds of millions of people globally changed their living situations to such an extent, separating themselves from others to such a degree, that individualism has become our basic social principle. And a society of individuals can be said to experience communion in little else than jointly consuming “public goods”—air, water, place, information.

In our individuality, and without the strictures of interdependent community, we have gradually absconded from our personal responsibilities and interests, relinquishing them to ever-distant political bodies and impersonal purveyors of goods. Disenchanted and dispossessed, we became targets—individuality and dependency are profitable concepts. Consumer culture was born, and savvy profit-seekers have supplied us with automobiles, personal computers and DVD players, MP3 players, earbuds and cell phones, all those things which so clearly illustrate our isolation from all those other individuals surrounding us.

Now, as a society, we live individually or as nuclear families, needing 1) only those companies which provide us goods or services to consume—those that grow, transport, process, package, and sell us our food; those that saw and mill or synthetically produce the materials from which we build and furnish our homes; those that produce our energy sources (at tremendously high cost monetarily, environmentally, and socially), transport them directly to our homes (by way of an ubiquitous, monstrously ugly, dangerous and bothersome web of power and gas lines), and sell them to us (at unbelievably low cost for what they help us achieve); those that grow and mill or synthetically produce the fabrics from which other companies fashion the products with which we clothe ourselves; those that sell us the ability to “communicate” with those other individuals with whom we still share some modicum of relationship; those that produce and/or provide our means of transportation in our exceedingly travel-dependent systems of land use and municipal zoning; those that pay us wages for doing often demeaning work so that we can hopefully afford to buy the services and products of all these other companies—and 2) the paternalistic, multifarious, often duplicitous and unquestionably inefficient and wasteful government programs and legislation intended to “help” us achieve our goals or “protect” us in achieving them.

Thankfully, many people live outside of this paradigm, and I am grateful for them, and I hope they are appropriately grateful for their good fortune. However, this situation is the common social and economic paradigm of our time in the “developed” world, and this paradigm is so structurally engrained that except in local neighborhoods, VERY small towns, and institutional and religious communes, we no longer need the people we pass on the streets every day, and so we must create social conventions which keep us from doing them harm for the purpose of self-advancement.

I see dissatisfaction with and a backlash against this condition brewing in North American culture today. These have been brewing since the “Back to the Land” movement of nearly four decades ago. Unfortunately, that movement (along with the Hippie counterculture that partially gave birth to it) was a reactionary one, and its influence was significant but small. I fear reactionary “movements”, for a reaction cannot exist except in reference to another thing; move away from that thing and the ideals which brought about the reaction can be ambiguated, forgotten, or preyed upon. What I hope to come of this dissatisfaction is not some new movement fashioned out of the philosophies of self which dominate our current social situation but a thoroughgoing rediscovery of the necessity and pleasure of life in meaningful relationship with others.

When we belong with and to one another, perhaps we will be able and willing to trade our pleasantries and politeness for civility and consideration.

Maybe even talking about the weather will become a truly worthwhile activity.

Great News!

According to this article, Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, believes that al-Qaida is no longer operating in Afghanistan.

Great! Mission accomplished, payback for 9/11 complete. So when are we bringing our boys home?

Wait, aren't we sending even more troops to Afghanistan?

Oh, yeah, that's right—we still haven't completed that pipeline to the Indian Ocean that we wanted in the region, and we haven't yet bound ourselves to India by invading Pakistan...ummm, I mean, "supporting" Pakistan's valiant offensives against the Taliban (you know, that little troublesome group we essentially created to help stave off the last invaders of Afghanistan, the Soviets), and we haven't found Osama bin Laden, and we haven't completed our nationbuilding exercises in the region (as pushed by the new pro-war "progressive" thinktank, the Center for a New American Security, from which Obama conscripted his Undersecretary of Defense).

We're gettin' in deep, people, and it ain't likely to get better anytime soon.

You know, I wonder what happened to all those anti-war protesters we used to have? Are they all at a conference or something? Since Obama passed himself off as the anti-war candidate last year, maybe they all quit once he was elected, expecting the Pax Americana to descend upon the earth. Or maybe they have all bought into the "wrong war" mantra of some so-called "progressives" in Congress. And I expect a few of them were just Bush-bashers and Republican-haters (which is fine, since both Bush and most recent Republican politicians deserve nearly every unkind thing one can think of to say about them, and I say that as a registered Republican and as someone who voted for Bush). But aren't there any anti-war protesters out there who are actually against war? Or is that kind of ideological consonance unattainable in our day by anyone who is not a Jain, Buddhist, Mennonite, Quaker, or Amish? (Luckily, there are a few decent anti-war people around—they just aren't the ones we heard screaming during the Bush years who now seem to have lost their voices—and they often have good things to say.)

OK, I suppose the only really great news here is that the good ol' U.S. of A. hasn't strayed from its course since 1917, when the war-mongering, Constitution-trampling "Progressive" Woodrow Wilson set us off on our enduring Imperial Quest to "make the world safe for democracy".

If you consider that a good thing.

Connections

I need connections. I need a place to be and to be a part of. Since I was 17 I’ve been somewhat of a drifter. I finished high school, moved out of my parents’ house, and set out on a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to make it on my own.

Growing up in King, North Carolina, never quite suited me. I dreamed of being other places, of being someone else. I remember hearing a song on the radio at my grandmother’s house when I was about 12 or 13; it said, “I’m gonna be somebody/One of these days I’m gonna break these chains/I’m gonna be somebody/You can bet your hard-earned dollar I will.” This was Travis Tritt’s “I’m Gonna Be Sombody”, one of his first singles. I didn’t know who Travis Tritt was at that time, but I knew I wanted to be like the guy in that song. Unfortunately, I thought that meant having to leave behind everything and everyone I knew, since what I knew didn't quite encourage being "somebody".

I first visited New York when I was 17. I loved the city and came to realize through that weeklong experience that there was a MUCH bigger world out there for me to get to know. Sometime around my 18th birthday I took a trip to Alaska as a graduation/birthday present to myself. This was too much—seeing the two extremes of the quintessential urban landscape and, a few months later, after I had had a little time to process the first experience, the closest thing to wilderness America had left to offer proved more than my small-town-North Carolina self could handle. I wanted out.

After a year of community college a couple counties over from where I grew up, I began to feel drawn to work in church ministry. A few months later I decided on a college—in Saskatchewan, Canada, of all places. Three years and a bit later, looking to fulfill the internship requirement for my ministry degree (at a different college in a different Canadian province), I decided to take a job in Casper, Wyoming, basing my choice on driving through western and north-central Wyoming in 1998 and the eastern half of the state, including Casper, in 1999. I arrived in Casper one fine day in late August, 2000, not having a clue as to where I was going to live, much less sleep that night. Thankfully, Dave Tenney, the kind fellow who had been called out to welcome me on behalf of the school I was to teach at (pardon me, at which I was to teach), happened to have a garage apartment for rent. His sweet little children were the first to introduce me to my new title: Mr. Calloway.

I worked at the school and at a church, fulfilling the requirements for three different internships during that year. I loved it—I was busy, I had my own life for the first time, I was important to a lot of people. I developed some of the deepest friendships of my life during that time. But, due to the combination of a couple bad experiences and the lack of maturity necessary to handle them well, I decided to leave my chosen home, taking the easy way out by blaming the decision on having finished my internships and my desire to finish my degree. A part of me regretted that decision for several years. A part of me still considers Casper my home.

I spent two years in Alberta, finished one degree and came within one assignment of finishing a second, drove back to Casper, spent six months there trying to work through my regrets, and then finally returned to North Carolina, penniless, with not a bit of direction for my life. So I decided to do what nearly all directionless people do—go to university. I thought I’d become a professional at some academic abstraction, finally become somebody, finally break those chains of indecision and regret. Well, a bit more than two years, two universities, $35,000 of student loan debt, and the failure of the most serious romantic relationship up to that point of my life later, at the age of 29, I moved back in with my parents, ostensibly to help care for my partially disabled dad, but in reality because I had nothing else left. Six months later I drove out to Montana for a job interview, and on a whim took a little jaunt back up to Saskatchewan. Thank God.

Over the years I got to know a lot of people and a lot of places, but I’m about as rootless as a store-bought onion. Sure, I have my favorite places scattered over the U.S. and western Canada—a little cove in a waterfall in North Carolina, the spot beside the Snake River at the base of the Tetons where I first heard coyotes sing, decaying pioneers’ cabins here and there, great little Indonesian restaurants in Calgary and New York, a krumholtzed five-foot-tall relic of a tree on Wolf Rock, a nearly redwood-sized 500-year-old tulip poplar tucked so far back into the mountains of Tennessee that it somehow survived the loggers’ saws, the glistening stream in Wyoming where I first flyfished, a muddy trickle of a spring in the Smoky Mountains that once quite possibly saved my life. And I know people scattered all around the world who have had profound influences on my life, with most of whom, however, I carry on little or no correspondence. I now have a beautiful wife and child to ground me somewhat, but what I lack is a deep and abiding relationship to A place and A community of people.

I have been reading Wendell Berry’s essay, “A Native Hill”, in which he looks at his own life in terms of the place in Kentucky where he grew up and to which he returned after he tired of his successful literary career in New York and other famous centers of magnificence. His relationship with that place and the people there show me what I do not have, what I never have had, but what I desperately want.

I think there’s something missing in most of us products of suburban life and modern transport. And I think that thing that’s missing has a lot to do with our general dissatisfaction with our circumstances here in the most wealthy region of the world, the erosion of our culture and decency, our rates of depression and suicide, our extreme individuality, escapist religious teachings, extractive consumer economy, and progressive destruction of the earth. I think most of us suffer from a fundamental sickness, and it comes on us because we never truly belong to a place. And if we never belong to a place, we cannot in any meaningful sense belong to its people—no wonder we escape into virtual online worlds, collect friends on Facebook, and absentmindedly chat on our cellphones nearly constantly. If we do not belong to any place or its community of people, we are all nothing but individuals passing one another every day, getting to pick and choose our relationships based upon how they benefit us, seldom being required to develop the humility necessary to see ourselves as small parts of a greater whole. This hubris of the self is one of the most devastating forces humanity can wield, and, unfortunately, our contemporary culture and its consumer economy are geared to create just that pathos in each one of us.

So how does the drifter find a home? How does he make a place his own and begin to belong to it rather than the other way around? How does the self-centered man be truly present with other self-centered people? How do individuals create genuine community where it does not exist, and how can we genuinely enter into it where it does? I’m not asking how we make friends—most of us are capable of that. But how do we create interconnectedness—healthy interdependence—in a world of individuals and an economy of consumers?

Solutions

Before my recent forays into the religious side of things (I’ll soon post on why that’s been on my mind of late) I had made mention of both my belief in sustainability and my distrust of technological “solutions”. We’ve heard a lot lately about being “green”, from “green” jobs as the answer to our current unemployment problems, to the need for more “green” vehicles from U.S. automakers, to “green” energy production, to the recent cropping up of “Recession Gardens” all over the country. Being “green” is a good thing to do—it’s a good first step for otherwise disconnected people—but, as it is usually presented, it is in no way sustainable and does not represent a lasting solution to either our social or environmental problems.

I’ve recently read about three different “solutions” to various environmental problems. Two are in the vein of “green” technologies; the other entails a simple, practical, low-to-no-cost change in thinking and behavior. I hate to give away anything so early, but let’s have a vote now: which of these three was not covered by mainstream media outlets? Darn, I let the cat out of the bag on that one, didn’t I? OK, how’s about another vote: which will likely gain the least traction in society as a whole? I know, that setup is unfair and cynical…but not wrong.

The first article talks about “artificial trees” that would use a special resin to soak up carbon dioxide. When the resin is rinsed with water it releases its CO2, which can then be separated from the water and stored for later industrial uses such as carbonated drink manufacture or oilwell pressurization. Each of these “trees”, with the use of 32,800 feet of resin, should be capable of capturing about 1 ton of CO2 daily, which is a substantial amount and pretty impressive I might add. Overall, I think this is a pretty cool idea, as it would give an excellent “on demand” emissions-reduction option for significant CO2 polluters like power generation stations. I have some reservations about the effects of producing that much (supposedly “environmentally friendly”) resin, but in a world where nearly everything else is made of plastic, who cares?

The second article discusses the rush toward “green” energy production and its unintended consequences. It seems that mega-scale solar and wind farms in the middle of nowhere and the transmission lines that carry their energy to more populated areas affect wildlife. Imagine that. And why is it that all these utility companies are moving so strongly toward renewable sources? Government-mandated production targets. (Honestly, I don’t mean to sound so cynical. Producing electricity from renewable sources is responsible and good and even the moral thing to do. And perhaps our society is so screwed up and driven by high profits and low prices that the government is forced to step in and mandate the responsible choice, but I don’t think that’s really what’s going on here. More on that later.)

The third article talks about the many benefits of grass-fed beef, but focuses on the benefits to the environment. It seems that the acreage used to finish cows (to fatten them up to marketable weight and characteristics for slaughter) on grass or on grain is, on average, the same. The article argues that if we were to replace the farmland used to grow grain for feedlot finishing with perennial pasture for grass finishing, we could reduce carbon emissions by a net 3000 pounds/acre/year over feedlot finishing on grain. This figure isn’t quite as impressive on its face as that capable by the aforementioned artificial trees, but when we start talking about millions of acres things kinda begin to add up. Also, it requires absolutely no new technological inputs.

Did you figure out which article was which? Just teasing.

Now I’m all for responsible technologies that keep negative human effects on the environment to a minimum; sure, irresponsibly practiced technological “progress” has brought about many of our current problems, but the wise use of technology could reverse the effects of many of our ills. The onus is on us to do just that.

I try to be “green”. I believe strongly in recycling, reusing anything and everything, reducing consumption…all the aims of the sloganeering of the late 1980s/early 1990s. I believe in using alternative fuels for personal vehicles (although I presently do not—my 16-year-old Nissan pickup absolutely HATES ethanol. In cold weather, ethanol blends reduce my mileage by about 35%. Even in warm weather, using a 10% ethanol blend reduces my truck’s average pure-gasoline mileage by about 20%, which means I’m actually increasing my net gasoline consumption by something like 19% by burning an ethanol blend…go figure). I believe in eating foods raised without petrochemical inputs. I believe in eating locally when possible, thus reducing fuel consumption from transportation. I have in the past used compact fluorescent bulbs (although I no longer do since I consider heavy metal toxicity to present a more serious threat to the environment than increased CO2 levels). I don’t do laundry on the “hot” setting. I keep the furnace set just marginally warm enough for comfort. I like all these popular things. I’m even occasionally willing to buy the “EnviroCare” paper products and scour my behind with recycled-stock toilet paper (using a cat’s tongue would be gentler…although much more traumatic…especially for the cat).

However, not one of these practices is truly sustainable. All of them together do not constitute sustainability. Even their combination with all the other pedantic pseudo-moralisms of our Earth Day concert-watching, slogan-chanting, superficially well-intended society cannot fix our problems. Only a radical shift in our thinking and our behavior (and, therefore, in our politics and economics) could do that.

I have a lot more I’d like to say about these articles and this topic, but I’m tired and want to go to bed. Also, I’ve been working on this post sporadically for over a week and I want to post something of it. So consider this Part 1. Tune in later for Part 2. Goodnight.

Federalism Amendment?

I just read this article from the Wall Street Journal on the wisdom of seeking a Federalism Amendment to specifically define federal and state powers. If you know me, you know I think this is long overdue.

The combination of the current economic crisis, the multi-trillion-dollar bailouts and government guarantees, a long history of unfunded federal mandates on the states, the economic parameters of Obama's $787 billion "stimulus" for the states, the proposed changes in tax laws, recently released reports from both the Missouri Information Analysis Center and Department of Homeland Security warning law enforcement agencies of the threats posed by those who question federal primacy, and the election of a Democrat president and Democrat supermajority Congress have come together to ignite quite a bit of anti-central government furor, for better or worse. No matter what the reasons are or what foolishness the excesses and grandstanding may bring about, the thing I like about this situation is this: due to economics alone, the United States will soon be forced to revisit, refine, and perhaps redefine the relationship of state versus federal primacy in governance.

If you are an American and have not read the Constitution and its Amendments (as most Americans have not), take an hour and give it a read sometime. If you read it you will discover how far we've moved away from it as a nation, even though it is supposedly our government's guiding and enforcing document. It is a pretty impressive work, one that we would do well to follow more closely, but it is not perfect—it left many loopholes for the unscrupulous and the power-hungry to find. The proposed Federalism Amendment would remedy many of those ills, and perhaps the national dialogue its formal proposal would engender would benefit us all.

A Tale of Adam

In light of my last blog entry, I would like to introduce some thoughts based upon something I originally wrote down a couple years ago as a way to deal with something on my mind at the time. Back then, I titled that discussion “A Discourse on Creation Pistology”. Yeah, that was back when I was still trying to sound important and impress people. Now, I’ll just call it “A Tale of Adam”.

In this little discourse I talk about a “philosophy of God”—by that I mean what we think God is like, how and/or whether we can experience God, how we can know anything about God, etc. Academic theology would cover these ideas in the disciplines of theology and pistology; however, I think these separate constructions are faulty and would rather see them as parts of an overall approach to God, hence my term "philosophy".

So, without further ado...



I recently read Tales of Adam by Daniel Quinn. I thought it was an excellently crafted work that made the first family of the Judeo-Christian tradition seem quite well what they always were—human. After all, the term adam is simply the Hebrew word for “a man” or, by extension, “mankind”; it should never have been considered a proper name. This story of “Adam” is representative of the story of humanity.

Tales of Adam got me thinking about the Taoist attitude which has made its way into Christianity by which we lazily allow circumstances to shape us, accepting things in the name of being the will of God. This turned my mind to the problems this situation creates—namely, the manic/depressive episodes of thankfulness and anger/despair felt in response to accepting the circumstances of life as the will of an assumably benevolent God, and the general apathy that can result.

What should happen to this situation when we look past the belief that the world was ever an idyllic place? What happens when we trace concepts such as sin and salvation back beyond their ecclesiastical constructions? What happens when we deconstruct beliefs such as these in light of and in favor of a more ancient understanding?

We would deny some of the bases for Christian doctrine. But we would open up the possibility of experiencing an attainable and intimate faith.

A faith in which we and the world around us are not at odds, not at enmity with one another, not different creations, but one and the same. This would free us from the restraints of enmity with Creation (and our Creator in the bad times) and allow us to rest.

We have created God in our own image. We have allowed thinkers in dark rooms to express in finite human terms the infinite light of God. We have taken their ideas and have elevated them to the status of being an ‘ology’—a study of, a dependable discourse about. Some strains of Christianity have taken this further and have reified a particular view of theology into an ‘onomy’—a law—particularly medieval Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, and modern evangelical fundamentalism.

In these systems, the constructed “faith”—one’s perception of his own relationship with God—is the tread of a wheel, the beliefs and doctrines its spokes, and their commitment to a particular philosophy of God is the hub, without which the entire wheel falls apart and the believer is left broken and in peril. What all these systems have failed to recognize (or admit) is that the hub rides along on an axle of human thought, finite constructions, and various responses and revisions according to the circumstances of belief over time and space, and is cotterpinned to these deficiencies by a choice of commitment. Upon the collective “wheels” and “axles” of all believers of all time ride our ecclesiastical structures—our denominations and hierachies, our missions, our ministries, our programs.

But what if the believer should consider this axle to be faulty and untrustworthy? What if his wheel is damaged? Does he lose his constructed “faith”? Where is he left? He is either adrift, alone and lacking a dependable archeology of belief, or he takes the more determined human route in which we whip the amalgam of our ideals, our desires, and our guilt into action until it surges forward beastlike in its traces and pulls our ecclesiastical structure along on a path of its own devising regardless of the lack of integrity in our vehicle’s construction and regardless of our lack of confidence in its design.

But what should happen if we deny this hub of human-made law, allow our spokes to fall away, break the axles of our own faulty construction, release the beast of our ideals and desires and guilt from its burden, step out of our rickety ecclesiastical constructions and down into the path of creation, where we find both the laws and presence of the one in whom we live and move and have our being? What happens when we stop midstride on the march of the Christian soldier and sit down among the meek?

The entire world becomes open to us, and we to it. And I say this not in the Zen, Toaist, or Hindu sense, and certainly not in some mindless New Age Aquarian hallucination, but in the very real and true and indisputable admission that it is in the Creation that humanity finds its most evident, effable, consistent, everlasting, and transcendent revelation of God. When we see the world around us in such a way, we begin to look around us for the revelation of God and not for the manifestation of evil, we look for the good in our fellow humans rather than for their sins. Our constructed “faith” is replaced by deep experience, and we find rest for our weary souls in the stasis of eternity. Suddenly, accomplishment of the greatest commandments—to love our God and to love our neighbors as ourselves—is not so improbable. When we find ourselves in the limitless sea of the revelation of God around and in us, our relationship with God is no longer a contingency of belief, and therefore then finds substance of its own. It then rests and finds its identity not in choices, commitments, or practices but in the absence of these—faith, the evidence of things unseen—while the turbulence and insubstantiality of a contingency upon commitments and constructions drop away from us like a burden turned out of hand.

Orthodoxy?

I was asked the other day by a pastor, “You’re not exactly what we would call ‘orthodox’, are you?”

No, I’m not. Being “orthodox” would suggest that I have the right worship of God, and the right thought, opinion, or estimation of him and his relationship to everything else which exists. I think that would be a problematic place to be. If I think I’m right about those things I’m going to stop looking for anything else that may be right; therefore, if I’m wrong, I will become nearly incurably so. As I told the pastor, I much prefer to focus on orthopraxy—right action or practice—which is experiential and to some degree self-corrective (if not allowed to become another orthodoxy in itself).

As an orthopractic rather than an orthodox follower of the way of Jesus, I tend to focus on the human element of the biblical narrative. I tend not to hold anything so dear as to consider it beyond questioning; or, perhaps I consider everything so dear as to want to understand it all. I don’t get tied up in the literal hermeneutics and the pick-and-choose proof-texting exegesis necessary for creating and upholding doctrines; therefore, my reading of scripture, my views on the nature and person of Jesus, and my entire concept of God are rather “loose” by orthodox Christian standards. This creates precious little in the way of confidence of belief. I have experienced my own “crises of belief” and have seen how they can destroy good people. I do not wish such crises on anyone else; however, if they bring us to humility rather than despair, if they lead us to a less self-centered expression of faith, and if they encourage us to treat others in the way of Jesus, they are worth the discomfort.

All that to say this: my faith is real and means a lot to me, but I look at the Christian religion much differently than do most people who would call themselves Christian. This leads me to unorthodox opinions and causes me to rail against some things I consider spectacular failures of Christianity. I will represent that thinking from time to time in this blog. I hope my musings will cause no one any undue offense; rather, I hope these thoughts can spur discussion and lead all of us to a more responsible faith.