A Believer's Journal

When I was a boy, my father took me hiking.
When I was a boy, my father took me bird-watching.
When I was a boy, my father took me swimming.
When I was a boy, my father took me sailing.
When I was a boy, my father took me canoeing.
When I was a boy, my father took me to church.

I am who I am — a lover of mountains and birds and water, a sailor, a canoeist, a Christian — because my father took me. Because my father took me. Because my father.

Because my father took me hiking. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me bird-watching. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me swimming. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me sailing. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me canoeing. Just my father and me.
Because my father took me to church.
        But not just my father and me. Much bigger than that.
        And not just church. Much bigger than that.

My father’s life revealed a passion for something inscrutable, but deeply personal, something worthy to be desired, to be pursued, with all of one’s heart and mind and strength, the heartbeat at the center of the universe, the artist from whose hand all beauty derives, the tender teacher who reveals what is treasure and what is dross, the generous giver whose life is a pouring out and who calls us to a life of pouring out, a pouring out that leaves us, not empty, but overflowing.

I believe that America does not have to be great to be good.
I believe that virtue rewarded is no true virtue.
I believe that killing, whether done by persons or by states, is always wrong.
I believe that happiness comes not by pursuit, but by grace.
I believe that strangers shouldn’t be.
I believe that pigeon-holing is a sin.
I believe that life is precious and that death is what it seems to be.
I believe that what is truly ours is not what we acquire, but what we create.
I believe that not to risk is not to live.
I believe that art, the act of making beauty, is what we were made for.
I believe that envy belittles God’s beneficence.
I believe that I know very little, but the little I know is wondrous.