Beyond Theism

FAITH TODAY - Published May 15th 2010

I wish everyone would go out and read the book God at 2000.

This nifty little book by Morehouse Publishing is a series of lectures given at the University of Oregon by some of the best of today’s religious thinkers from our three sister religions; Islam, Judaism and Christianity. It is an easy read, because the question was one that we can all relate to. “Who is God for you? What does that mean to you?”

So there is very little academic double speak, or contemplation of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; instead, we find Marcos Borg, or Karen Armstrong, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, or Desmond Tutu all talking about their own personal faith in ways that we can get.

Since this is a work about modern Christian thought; the challenging thing for us to hear is that none of them see God as anything like how we saw “him” while we were growing up in Sunday School.

It is strange, isn’t it? How the way we see life, the universe and everything changes all the time, but the way we see religion, or our faith, or God, sometimes seems like it is stuck in Molasses.

So who is God to you?

The closest thing I think I have ever come to a personal definition is the concept of The Force from Star Wars (the old Star Wars, before there were microscopic God like aliens altering the fabric of the Force). This is not as wacky as it sounds; I don’t know if George Lucas was channelling God when he came up with this or what, but the force is a concept of divinity that actually makes sense to the modern post enlightenment, scientific, cynical, questioning people we have become.

I am not alone, I am connected to all things, and all things are connected to me. There is an invisible bond that has power, that inspires, that empowers, and that changes the fabric of the universe and my interaction with it. Consider that this force is neutral but can become either light or dark, and one chooses how they are going to interact with it becoming either Jedi or Sith.

Traditionally we call this Force the Logos; the Greek word for the creative Word of God. Which was in the beginning and all things came into being through it. Jesus became so capable of channelling the force that he was the living example of it, the Word Incarnate...

Think it is strange to use a Science Fiction movie to define God? Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, one of the greatest living scholars of Judaism, defines life as a video game:

It is a game that is played in a virtual environment we call “Earth” and has five rules:

1. You never know when the game is going to start.

2. You cannot ever stop playing the game once you start.

3. Just to keep you on your toes each player is awarded random and undeserved gifts and handicaps as they play.

4. Points are awarded whenever you discern that life is about more than you as a player, or whenever you catch glimpses of the divine.

5. Everything is connected to everything else.

Which brings us full circle to the force; and the modern concept of God that is actually not really mine, although I have applied it to Star Wars; but rather, the way a lot of people are seeing God and our relationship with God these days.

There has been a lot made about all these famous Atheists writing about how God doesn’t exist. The problem is, they suffer from the same thing that is stopping a lot of people from coming in our doors, and they are trapped in a thousand year old way of seeing God that just doesn’t make sense anymore.

I encourage you to read the book, to think about your faith, and to accept that God is beyond any way we can possibly explain it.

On Burning Qur'ans

This is an alternative column for this week - I did not get time to write it and get it published before my due date... so... for your consideration....

The news this week had a disturbing story for those of us who call ourselves Christian.

It seems there is a pastor in Florida who has convinced his church that it is a good idea to hold a book burning on September 11^th of this year. There is one book in particular which has been targeted: the Quran, the holy Bible of the Islamic Faith, passed down word for word to the prophet Mohammed in a vision.

The guy’s name is Terry Jones; and he and his church were unknown until this pronouncement. Now there are 11,600 news stories about him according to the Google news search. Oh, 11601 because I just gave him another one.

What would I have to do to up my Google count from 1400 to 14,000? Maybe convince my followers to drink Kool-Aid laced with arsenic? Perhaps I should lead everyone down to the rain forest and start sending out mysteriously ominous twitter messages? Or how about stockpile automatic rifles and get a few more wives?

I bet those things would get me in the news.

You know what won’t get me in the news? This week in church I will use, at the suggestion of another minister on Facebook, the first Surah of the Quran; the opening prayer of the Muslim faith, as the opening prayer for my congregation.

This week I will give a loonie to someone on the street who asks for it.

This week I will listen when someone tells me why they are having a bad day.

This week I will quietly sit in my office and pray for Terry Jones.

It is not simply that it is a publicity stunt; it is that it works. We eat this stuff up; and what we forget is that “news,” by definition, is anything out of the ordinary. It only makes headlines if it almost never happens. A plane crashes, a politician has an affair, an innocent bystander is murdered, quintuplets are born, and Santa Claus goes on strike... this is news, simply because it almost never happens, or happens so infrequently that it surprises us.

Our minds play tricks on us. We read news and categorize it as universal. A rogue wave hits a cruise ship and we will never, ever, go on a cruise. A plane is flown into the World Trade Centre and all Muslims are terrorists. A crazy nobody in a small town church says God told him to burn the Quran and all Christians are hate mongering lunatics.

It makes me want to resign. It makes me think I could do a heck of a lot more good separating myself from a fold that is broad enough to include Mr. Jones. But then.... But then... he wins.

As the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine wrote almost two centuries ago, "Those who begin by burning books will end by burning people.” The theatre piece for which he wrote those words, called "Almansor," was addressing the Inquisition's burning of the Quran. In 1933, university students in Heine's own beloved homeland burned his books, along with many others. They burned people soon after.

But then, we are talking about a couple of crazy national socialists who formed a political party during a time when Germany was reeling from defeat in a World War. They played up nationalism, and hid a lot of what they were truly doing.

75 years later we still talk about “The Germans” as if any but a chosen few actually knew what the work camps were all about.

This is always my fear. This is why I want to scream when I hear about some crazy Christian proclamation which is racism wrapped up in religious language.... we are not like that. The spiritual wisdom we all received by our connection to the divine, whether we wrote it down in the Quran, I Ching, Baghavad Ghita, or Bible all says the same thing – Love will save the day.

Anyone who says anything different is lying. So say we all.

Are 'hipster Christians' really that different?

FAITH TODAY Published Saturday September 11th, 2010

Have you ever heard of Hipster Christians?

Me neither. That is, until this week when I all of a sudden realized it is everywhere down in the United States, thanks to some American preachers I follow on Twitter.

According to the press, admittedly, some of their own press, Hipster Christianity is where church and cool collide. Catchy phrase, that.

The problem is, I have no idea what they are on about.

Here are some qualifications for being a "Hipster:" You might have an artistic temperament, or play in a garage band; you might have piercings or a tattoo; you like movies, books and music that is well respected and well, normal; you don't listen to Christian Contemporary music; don't like political evangelists, or televangelists; and don't think people are going to hell.

I have to tell you that I have never been called hip in my life. I sometimes thought I was cool, but certainly not in a hip way. I think you would like me though. I am also very much a mainstream protestant minister - and have been one for 16 years now.

My favourite band is Third Eye Blind. My favourite movies are the same as most of yours - although I am a guy reared on Monty Python, so I have some stupid humour problems. Love Steve Carell, for example.

I read graphic novels; my favourites are Planetary and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I play a level 80 Paladin in World of Warcraft online.

My ear was pierced three times until I was 30. I have a tattoo and want another one. I dream of owning a Harley.

I have mostly dressed as Dracula for Halloween and have read and seen every vampire movie there is.

Oh, and I write science fiction for a hobby.

I also visit in hospitals, council people with problems, volunteer my time for organizations involved in change, sit with the dying, mourn with the widows, give to the church and World Vision and the World Wildlife Fund.

I hope you see the point.

Almost every one of the people I know is a Christian. We all drink. We all play Xbox. We all can't wait for Harry Potter to come out. Half of us love comic books and the other half think we are stupid for loving comic books.

To me, "Hipster Christian" is a definition of normal person.

In what far-fetched corner of the galaxy is someone who likes movies, songs and stories that are critically and artistically judged among the best of the best some strange sort of new evolution of humanity?

The labelling has to stop.

I don't even understand why we have Protestants and Catholics anymore. The things we fought about back at the end of the Middle Ages certainly don't matter anymore, let alone the 10 million denominations - and now we are subdividing denominations according to fads?

People do not come to church because they think the people in church are not like them, plain and simple.

Jesus spent his life trying to be "just some guy who understands what you are going through" and he changed the world for the better because of it.

The truth is those inside the church are exactly like those on the outside.

They make mistakes, they make stupid choices, they spend too much time watching TV and eat junk food too much of the time. By creating a whole movement that says "hey, there are Christians who are relevant, who are hip..." you are implicitly stating that the bulk of Christianity is irrelevant and anachronistic.

Which is a lie.

Jesus was a social engineer who lost his life because of his politics. He was not trying to get people into Heaven. He was not trying to leave the world behind. He was trying to introduce religious values into everyday life.

Pray - because it connects you to something greater than yourself. Be humble - you are not the creator of your destiny, the universe is. Love - everyone is connected and we all need each other. Respect - there but for the grace of God.

You get the idea. Stop imagining me as something I am not. Those who are religious, they are pro-human, pro-love, and possibly the community you are looking for, hip or not.

Evolution

Religion Today - Published July 24th 2010

Anyone who picked up this month’s National Geographic would have found a fascinating read on human evolution; and the somewhat shocking discovery of human remains from over 4 million years ago.

Of course, there are those that also argue the world is only 6000 years old; plus change.

Apparently it is some sort of test of faith to believe that the definition of “truth” is severely limited to being written down in history.

I had a High School history teacher who once told us that history is recorded by the victors. By which he was trying to say that the people who sit down and write the history books only tell one side of the story, theirs...

The Bible does in fact contain “a history.” That history has to be understood in two ways, however; first, it is a history told for a reason, it is the history of our religious development as Christians... so a lot is left out. Secondly, it is a history written by the people who saw everything from one side, theirs. One would get a very different history of the Middle East by reading anything written by Canaanites, or Egyptians, or Romans.

I mention this because that whole 6000 year thing comes from the fact that the Bible records, give or take, some 6000 years of the desert trials and tribulations of a particular band of nomads who trace their roots back to the probably real Abraham and Sarah and the mythical archetypes of Adam and Eve.

The only thing that is actually six thousand years old is our ability to write.

And since most of us do not have very long memories, no one wrote about Ardi, the slightly shorter than four foot female of the “Ardipithecus Ramidus” branch of humanity. She wasn’t that far away from Israel, after all, being born and living out her short life in northern Ethiopia.

Evolutionary history can now be traced back conclusively through three periods of human development over 6 million years. For the last two million we have been Homo Erectus, pretty much what we are now, large brain, tool using mammals with opposable thumbs. For the two million before that we were Australopithecus with longer legs, larger chewing teeth, and a bit more facial hair. And then, for as far back as we have discovered before that, we were Ardipithicus and hung out in trees as well as walked, lived in the woods, and ate plants and animals.

As near as they can tell, it was 8 million years ago that humans and chimps diverged.

By the way, it was as far back as 160,000 years ago that we became religious, thought about death, and earned the title Homo Sapiens... the thinking person. They know this because they have found a child’s grave in which the body was prepared for death rather than just disposed of.

So, a whole group of people out there will tell me that I am just believing stuff that was made up by scientists with some bizarre plan to discredit religion. But seriously, why would they do that? What is there to gain in saying that we have been here a long time? What is there to lose in saying we have been religious and believing in God for some 154,000 years longer than the Bible talks about?

The Bible is not a science textbook; and science and religion are not at odds. In fact, religious scholars were the only scientists for most of the history of our planet; and most scientists today are religious.

Those that say they are atheists are probably just so fed up with people who read the Bible wrong and try to enforce their views through violence... unlike the person they are supposed to be following Jesus, who believed in everything the Jews, Greeks and Roman’s knew; and just realized there was more we did not know.

Religion will die out or become irrelevant if it continues to fight against the truths that God has opened up through scientists. It is time to start seeing the world for what it really is, and living faithfully in it.

Summer Sabbath

Faith Today - published 19th June 2010

The natural rhythm of life is an interesting thing.

Summer is virtually upon us and it has brought with it a certain different pace of life; or at least a different set of activities.

I often wonder if those who live in the Polynesian Islands see life as being more constant than we do. I suspect they do, as they do not have to deal with the vagaries of summer following Spring following Winter. Or at least, I suspect they follow a completely different set of rhythms.

Of course, we are Nordic people with a limited growing season and an even more limited outdoor pool season. So we know life has rhythms, we see them every day as we watch flowers spring up, wither, and return to the ground.

For some reason we fail to see this as part of our spirituality – we fail to see that this is the way the world is intended to be.

Those rhythms are also present in the human body and the human condition.

My legs ache almost half of the time now that I am over forty. My ability to compete in reflex based video games also seems to be waning. Of course, I am gaining some wisdom and stability and perseverance to overcome these bodily defects; I suppose I should see it as a trade off, r at least accept it as part of the natural rhythm of life.

Passion wanes and re-ignites over time as well. It is a constant ebb and flow of rhythm that changes daily whether you are talking about passion for your loved one, your chosen career, or a particular ice cream.

This too is related to our faith.

This is something I think we have lost when we became mostly urban, mostly consumed with career, mostly over-rushed people. Any rhythm in our life that could be called natural has been pushed to the background by the artificial rhythm of 24 hour availability, 60 hour work weeks, 10 minute family times, artificial lighting, and time shifting PVR cable... any number of things that make it so that we control the rhythm and no longer follow the rhythm of nature and the world.

In my last column I compared God to the Force from Star Wars. In essence what I am talking about is the original Christian doctrine of Logos the Greek word for the creative power or spirit of the Universe. You see the universe functions according to rhythms and progressions that have to do with life and death, high energy and low energy, movement and entropy.

One ancient writer famously coined it thus: “for everything there is a season, and a time for everything...”

In a little over two weeks my church will close down, people will be off at the cottage, or visiting relations, or hanging on the beach. Hopefully some of them will visit our sister churches if it is rainy on a Sunday morning. Hopefully some will head to Synagogue or Mosque; a contemporary service at Allison or something at the Wesleyan church.

Perhaps not though as summer is a time when t he rhythms slow down and allow us to be focused on rest, relaxation, family, and sunshine.

And I guess the point of all this is that I think that summer and doing less is exactly what we were created for; and exactly how we get in touch with our true selves and commune with God.

In old fashioned religious terms we are talking about the Sabbath.

I don’t believe the Sabbath is Sunday. I don’t believe it is Saturday or sun-down Friday to sun-down Saturday either for that matter. I believe Sabbath is any time we accept and live the natural rhythm of life and become one with God.

Sabbath can be the ten minute coffee break where we find ourselves staring at beautiful fluffy clouds, or the week off fishing in the woods.

I encourage you over the next few months to build Sabbath, and the appreciation of life itself, and therefore God into your rhythms. There is no better time than summer to reignite your passion for the life you are supposed to live.

A little bit of doubt goes a long way

FAITH TODAY -Published Saturday April 10th, 2010

There are a few undervalued heroes in the biblical story -- and my contention is that Thomas gets a bad rap.

Here is how the day after Easter unfolds, at least in John's Gospel; the disciples are afraid for their lives, and hiding in a locked room. Jesus shows up, not having knocked, and convinces them that he is really back from the grave. They all rejoice and are happy and unlock the door.

What happens next is a little sketchy, but we know two things: First, Thomas was not there, and does not believe them. Second, within a week they have let fear get the best of them and are back behind locked doors.

I mean, it is not like these guys are the heroes of the day; even after supposedly encountering the risen Christ, they are still too afraid to do anything about it. And they turn on Thomas. As if it would be any different if the situation were reversed: If Thomas had been alone when Jesus showed up and he tried to convince them all of resurrection, they would have called him crazy, right?

Strange story; and Thomas goes down in history as "the doubter" when, in fact, he is just being realistic.

In fact, according to the story, Jesus himself doesn't berate Thomas, simply shows him the wounds and nods...

Since this story was written anywhere from 50-100 years after the events of Jesus life, and since Thomas has already gone on to be a hero, along with the rest of them; I'm thinking it is not really meant to be history -- it is meant to illustrate something about human nature.

We all have doubts. We all have fears. We all hide from the unknown. There is an opportunity with God's help to move beyond this.

It is not just Thomas who has a bad reputation; it is the whole concept of doubt, which is unfortunate.

Doubt is a safety valve for the human imagination. Doubt is the driving force for scientific research. Doubt allows faith to become praxis, which is a fancy way of saying action.

Somewhere along the way a lot of Christians got it mixed up, and doubt became the enemy of faith. To have faith became the exact same as "believing without doubt in..."

So, if you believe the Bible is entirely without error and you have no doubts about that, you are faithful.

If you believe that Jesus died on the cross to save you without doubt, you are faithful. If you believe that God created the world in exactly six days out of nothing, you are faithful. It was not so long ago that being faithful had nothing to do with belief. It had to do with the way you acted.

There is biblical precedence for this as well. Almost every prophet, major and minor, was only thought to speak on behalf of God after a good majority of their prophecies seemed to work out. It was the actions that determined the reliability of the witness, not some confession of faith.

That's the thing. A whole lot of people show up in church on holy days like Easter and never darken the door otherwise -- but do so as fully and faithfully as they can; and a whole lot of other people come every Sunday and mouth their parts.

I am not pointing any fingers here: I just think we should all keep in mind, even those of us who would never think of going to church that what really counts when you get down to the nitty-gritty is what you do from Monday to Saturday; and not simply what you do on Sunday morning.

We're all connected and we should all help

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Tuesday January 19th, 2010

A friend pointed out that no matter how many times they show starving children from Africa on television, it will never have the same affect on him as the SPCA ad where abused animals are featured to the soundtrack of Sarah McLaughlin.

I suspect he is not alone. Nor is this specific illustration the only one it applies to. I find myself really, really upset when I hear about the mistreatment of animals. Not only that, but if I see something in the movies where an animal is tortured or killed, I react much more strongly than if it was a human being.

I don't like seeing human beings tortured, or killed, or starved, or drowned, or done in by any other violent act. I am not trying to say that I am OK with humans being tortured but not animals; I am simply saying that my visceral, "oh that is terrible" reaction is stronger when I see it happen to animals.

When I stop and think about this, I wonder why it is true.

There are a number of possibilities. Perhaps we have been so inundated with the plight of the poor that we no longer really feel anything when we are told someone is starving. Really, tragedy happens almost daily now. There are famines and floods, warfare and corrupt leaders, all of which contribute to the mess we have made of this world.

Some of it is our own fault, like warfare or soil erosion; but too often it is simply fate that sends a Tsunami, or destroys a city with an earthquake.

Don't get me wrong. When we hear of Port-au-Prince and the devastation and destruction they are facing in Haiti we do feel sorry for them. Almost everyone does. But it no longer moves us to tears. Nor does the feeling stick with us; I imagine many of you may have already set that bit of news aside by the time you read this column five days later.

So why tears when faced with an SPCA ad? Could it be that somewhere deep down we really do feel that human beings have the possibility of helping themselves; where animals do not? Do we feel more responsible for animals than for other humans?

Well, certainly they seem more helpless, more dependent, and therefore more in need.

But are the people in Haiti not helpless, dependant and in need right now too?

Of course they are.

Is compassion a limited resource? I don't think this is true. So what else stops us from feeling the full extent of tragedies that surround us?

I wonder what television has done to us. Since we have seen everything we can imagine happen on the big and little screen, has it built up a tolerance for real life disaster and violence? Or more pointedly, has it made everything we see seem fake whether it is or not?

I went to see the movie Avatar over the holidays, it was the best movie ever, and one of the things I have told people made it so good was that it was seamless in its integration of animation and real life. I honestly forgot that some characters, animals, and habitats were actually just cartoons. It seemed totally real.

Well, reverse that, if anything I can imagine can be made to look completely real on the screen; then what faculty do I trust in terms of determining credibility?

If you show me a starving girl, is she really starving or just made to look that way? Is she really in Africa or is that a backdrop in Los Angeles? Was that really an earthquake, or is it just some CGI animation? I watched my brother's production company "create" the Halifax Explosion for a movie. Perhaps it was a bit of history, but I also know it can be faked.

Which is not to say I think anyone is faking a natural disaster, or hunger, or pain of any sort. I am talking about our subconscious minds.

Perhaps it is easier to dismiss tragedy because we have seen so much staged tragedy as part of our 'entertainment.' Could that be true?

Is it easier not to think about because somewhere deep inside you suspect you could just change the channel and it would go away?

Here is the thing I have come to realize: tragedy is closer than you think.

People die all around you every day; and most of them were completely unprepared for it.

There is some chance that a hurricane, or earthquake, or tornado, or nuclear accident, or any number of catastrophic things might happen to devastate our part of the world. We should not think so much in terms of us and them, and pretend like we might never be on the receiving end of tragedy.

At the same time, we should work on getting in touch with the actual 'tragic' part of tragedy. Life is short as it is, and to have it ripped away unexpectedly is always an incredibly sad thing. We cannot let the frequency of tragedy, or the artful portrayal of death on television dry up what should be our real feelings.

We are connected to each other. That is true whether you are next door or thousands of miles away. The truth is that we all feel pain and loss, and it is never a good thing. Anything we can do to help one another should be done. At least, it's a start.

AN ANNOUNCEMENT

Although it may not affect people who only read the online version of my column via this blog: The actual physical column is moving...

From page two Monday
to Page One Tuesday

This site therefore cannot legally contain the article until Wednesdays now. As the Newspaper owns all first day publication rights.

(since monday is the lowest circulation of a weekly paper - this is in fact a bit of a promotion (grin)

Why New Year's resolutions never seem to last

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday January 4th, 2010

New Year's resolutions never last long do they?

How many have you broken already?

I have a theory. I wonder if the problem is that most of our resolutions are self centred, and so personal -- and more importantly, so independent -- that we are doomed to failure.

"I am going to stop smoking" or perhaps "I am going to lose weight" or even "I am going to run a marathon" are the types of things most of us say.

We might even get around to personality driven resolutions like "I will be happier" or "I will be a better father," but they are similar to the type I am describing.

And here is where they go wrong; the first word . . . "I."

Do you know that it has really only been over the last 30 years that we as a culture have moved away from the concept of "we" and focused on "I"? That change came about because of the 1960s. That is the simple truth of it.

A lot of people blame the past for a lot of things. I want to make it clear that there are hundreds of things that happened in the 1960s and 1970s that I am fully in favour of and think made society a much better place: the emancipation of women for example, or the civil rights movement and a greater move towards equality. I would even say the Vietnam War protests changed things for the better when they showed us that we can question motivations for government action.

Here is where it fell apart: the 1960s brought to consciousness the philosophical ideal of relativism. Relativism began the slippery slope to individualism. Individualism, well, it destroyed the fabric of society.

In a basic way, relativism is exactly what it sounds like, everything is relative. Which might not sound like much, but do not be fooled; if everything is relative, well, then nothing has any meaning.

There are certain truisms which we say all the time now, such as "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" or "that may be true for you but it is not true for me" that are the hallmarks of relativistic philosophy. It has so invaded our culture that we forget there was another way of seeing things.

For thousands of years philosophers and artists argued that there was such a thing as "beauty" which was universally true -- you could look at something and it would be beautiful. Whether or not you liked it was another thing altogether, but you had to admit it was beautiful. There was no such thing as beauty in the eye of the beholder, in fact, very few people were felt competent enough to judge real beauty; and the majority of people just accepted that a master work was just that, masterfully beautiful.

Same thing with the concept of true; when the folks sat down to draft the American Declaration of Independence that said: "We hold these truths to be self evident . . ." There was no question that everyone would agree it was true that everyone was created equal, that everyone had the same rights to life, and freedom. There were just certain things, certain axioms that were inviolate; no matter who you were or what you thought, they were true.

Relativism changed the focus from universal truth to independent truth. This is true for me; and that is all that matters. So you might think smoking marijuana is bad, but I think it is good, and who are you to tell me what to think? You might think that God exists, or that modern art is interesting, or that chamber music is boring; but in the end your opinion really does not matter to me and I will live my life the way I want to. Period.

Here is a concrete way that this has changed society for the worse: professionals. No matter what you do, most of the people you encounter will think you are doing it wrong if you are not doing it the way they want. Doctors, lawyers, ministers, politicians, dentists, writers, lawn care experts, life guards, waitresses . . . no matter who you are you are consciously questioned and people second guess you.

This is relativism and individualism at its worst. When someone off the street is able to say with confidence, "I don't believe you that it is just the flu, I think it is chicken pox and you are not going to convince me otherwise!" to a doctor and believe that their opinion is just as valid, there is something wrong.

We simply no longer believe that some things are just universally true, which makes it difficult to navigate how to be around other people.

Take that one step further and the focus becomes getting my needs met; sometimes at the cost of the needs of others. What is important to me is of course the most important thing in the universe. So I should get the promotion and the rest of the company be damned. If there is one Pinkie Pie My Little Pony left in the store before Christmas, my kid should get it, even though she has 100 other presents and the father who just missed picking it up is buying the one thing he can afford for his daughter and it is all she asked for and he is crying, and well, tough . . . me first.

And so, relativism has destroyed our society by making us believe that we are more important than we are.

Which is a long way around to telling you why your New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure; you will fail because for some strange reason we all think it is completely up to us to make it work.

"I" cannot do anything alone. "We" can do anything together.

My New Year's resolution is to stop believing I have the power to change myself or anyone else without asking for a lot of help.

Anything is possible!