Reflecting on a life of faith

“Agitators are a set of interfering meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow seeds of discontent among them. This is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary.” Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man under Socialism,” 1891.

In my last brief treatise I alluded to the courage and conviction of Peggy Hutchinson, a Methodist lay worker, who risked being apprehended and jailed in the mid-1980s for her commitment to transporting Central Americans across U.S. borders who were escaping violence and torture in their country. She ended up a convicted felon. Frankly, I admire anyone who shows up in person to deal with a contentious issue in public; those willing to be judged, lose their job, be humiliated, arrested, incarcerated and/or physically assaulted. There has to be an element of fear and maybe a bit of terror among those who choose to stand up, sit down or step over the line to protest something and remain to face the consequences.

I’m old enough to know about the messy demonstrations in Chicago in the mid-60s, a cultural uprising not unlike the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ phenomenon in some ways. What we may miss in watching the news or reading about demonstrators no matter what we think about them is the personal panic and fear they might be experiencing in those settings. Some may be harboring an element of dread that angry passersby could decide to assault them at any moment. There is always the possibility of a few protestors jumping in on a lark and others creating havoc and causing the police to become overly aggressive. Committed protesters may also sense at some point that there are citizens across the country watching the news that will not care about one’s physical welfare in such situations.

When I was reminded of Peggy’s ordeal while writing about her I thought I had never come near feeling what she may have been experiencing. But then I remembered the fright I felt after attending a Lenten service sponsored by my United Methodist denomination near a nuclear test site in Nevada in 2000. We were protesting future nuclear testing. We figured our country possessed enough missiles. I had not intended to step over a specific line in the sand where an arresting officer was waiting to handcuff trespassers but I did. The panic was minimized by the fact no one who took such action up to that time had ever been jailed. If convicted they could be imprisoned for six months. My concern had to do with a remote possibility of being incarcerated and having to explain to a new church to which I was about to be appointed that I might be delayed for a few months before reporting for duty.

I assumed I had avoided any deep-seated fear regarding my decision to participate in the protest but then two years later the terror set in. A friend of a friend who was being interviewed for a security clearance by a government official within the aircraft/space industry was asked “Do you happen to know a Willard Robert Stevens, Junior, who also goes by Buzz?” For a split second it was a little flattering to know that the country I love had taken notice of me. But in the next second paranoia took hold and in the third second a cold blast of sheer fear hit me.

Anybody – and I mean anybody – who chooses to put their body on the line for any controversial cause has to be prepared to have the absolute bejeebers scared out of them. So, I’d recommend wearing a diaper or a Depend, depending on your age, whenever it feels absolutely necessary to become an agitator. Yeah, that’ll do it, and you might want to consider holding onto the protective wear until you’re pretty certain you’ve dodged a bullet.

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Some prophetic crackpot has declared the world will end in a few days and the media are picking up on the prediction for some reason. Well, you never know, my wife was out of town so I decided to head for McDonald’s last night. I love their wild berry smoothies, the big ones. I sat in my car for what seemed like a long time at a double drive-thru store. Three cars in the next lane moved ahead of me and I’m thinking there is no time to lose; the clock’s ticking. After three or four minutes I’m steamed. The world is about to end and I want my smoothie! I yell “Hey, is anybody ho—?” and BAM, I slam my head into a rolled-up spotless window. I’d just had the car washed. How are we supposed to get ready for the end of time? You’d think, after purchasing a five grand set of hearing aids, that I might have heard something out of that stupid squawk box.

I’ve had a few days during worship services when I might have welcomed a day of reckoning. I knew I was headed for trouble in the hearing department when I could have sworn I heard the liturgist say during the announcements “Please do not bark in the handicap zones in the east lot.”

I knew I needed time out for clarification when I heard the communion assistant whisper to me “Do you want me to pass the Chablis?” Before I could wrestle the cup from him he assured me he had said “…pass the chalice.”

I knew I was in trouble when the choir director who sat on the opposite side of the chancel was mouthing something important. I was certain he was trying to communicate “The organ is on fire and I’m going for help.” Turned out he was muttering “Let’s omit the first verse of the last hymn.”

It was a bit disconcerting to come across Frederick Buechner’s book Whistling in the Dark to learn that he thinks the Bible uses hearing, not seeing, as the main image for the way we know God. If that’s true I’ve got a problem. My hearing is leaving me faster than my hair, teeth and taste buds. Buechner claims we “can’t walk around him and take him in like a cathedral or an artichoke. We can only listen to time for the sound of him…”

The scripture calls for those who have ears to hear to let them hear. What if we don’t! A couple of decades ago I did hear distinctly about Peggy Hutchinson, a Methodist lay worker who had worshipped in our church in Tucson. She was caught transporting Central Americans across the Mexico border and wound up in court for six months with a felony conviction. Peggy defiantly declared in court “As long as that exodus, violence and torture in Central America continue; we have no choice.” I still wasn’t quite hearing her until she said “The church must take sides on the issue. The government took sides when it sent spies into church meetings and Bible study groups; which side will the church take”

Selective hearing may not cause too much damage inside our temples but it won’t cut it on the outside.

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“We speak of hope; but is not hope only a more gentle name for fear?”
Letitia E. Landon. (19th century Br. Poet)

The ‘parallel universe’ notion, the idea that mortals need to live in a relational mode that causes them to maximize unconditional compassion in real time, may be a recent evolutionary phenomenon to which earthlings have given little credence. The parallel loving theory suggests that the most profound intimacy imaginable whether it has to do with friendships, neighbors, relatives, loved ones or strangers is experienced in real time. That means if we don’t have periodic moments of deep breakthroughs within those time-tested lengthy bonds or with outsiders we’re settling for secondary loving. And when we hog, hide or hoard the compassion we garner through lengthy relationships we lose out on fresh, unconditional empathy with outlanders that can break through our safe, comfortable commitments to family and friends.

Unconditional compassion is generated in the now. Distant loving is primarily based on hope and becomes a lesser form of intimacy. We are relying on it more than we should and here’s an example.

Mitch Albom, in his charming, heart-warming, much acclaimed novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, lifts up a fascinating image for discovering in heaven how we fared on earth by way of significant encounters with strangers and love unions. At first read, one has to be moved in the opening chapter by a description of the main character encountering for the first-time love of his life. The author writes, “Every life has one true-love snapshot. For Eddie, it came on a warm September night after a thunderstorm, when the boardwalk was spongy with water. She wore a yellow cotton dress, with a pink barrette in her hair. Eddie didn’t say much. He was so nervous he felt as if his tongue were glued to his teeth. They danced to the music of a big band…she said she had to go before her parents got angry. But as she walked away, she turned and waved.”

“That,” the author concludes, “was the snapshot. For the rest of his life, whenever he thought of Marguerite, Eddie would see that moment, her waving over her shoulder, her dark hair falling over one eye, and he would feel the same arterial burst of love.”

Eddie, an eighty two-year-old maintenance man who seemingly lives a lonely, meaningless existence repairing amusement park equipment is assured in heaven that through his diligent work habits he managed to prevent numerous children and adults from being injured or killed. We are led to believe Eddie may have lived in a permanent state of grief for half his life over his wife’s death and memory of their love but he was able to protect or possibly prolong the lives of scores of strangers, so, the narrative implies, his work achievements compensated for his loneliness. If Eddie, who put his physical life on the line in an attempt to save a child perilously trapped beneath a cart about to fall, had on occasion put his emotional life on the line by daring to plunge into the innermost-depths of strangers or acquaintances, he might have entered Heaven a happier camper.

Parallel bonding calls for bold loving. ‘Old love’ is sealed off from new loving and that means we have to be intentional about it by making things happen in the moment. When loved ones or close friends move away we may communicate by phone, Face Book, Twitter, Skypes and/or snail mail but if it’s a way to sustain unconditional loving it will likely not work for very long. We can wind up relying upon a smoldering form of bonding but it won’t speak to the loneliness we may feel.

We wonder why we suddenly realize over time that a few dear friends on our seasonal greeting list dropped away. It’s apt to the fact they aren’t able to generate real-time empathy with us. It’s difficult at times to delete names of the departed or friends who have moved across country. It would be interesting to go through our cards or e-files to determine who continues to energize us in the love department. We may not want to know. What if friends and relatives keep us on their lists because they feel a little guilty that they are not experiencing any form of deep intimacy in real time with us and don’t want to confess it?

When a cousin I’ve admired for decades stops sending cards it’s rather devastating. When an old girlfriend ceases sending annual greetings it hurts but what the heck. When a cherished mentor drops off it may sting, but what if the drop-aways mean those on the other end are merely realizing the glow is gone? We need to relish the fact the intimacy we experienced with them in the past is lodged within us. We can bank on it for fond memories but not for instantaneous empathy.

I don’t buy Albom’s implication that every life has a decades-old true-love snapshot that has the capacity to generate arterial bursts of love in the present. We can have a host of true-compassion encounters – romantic or otherwise – inside or outside our cherished bonds. We have to bravely strive for face-to-face connections that can inspire on-the-spot profound empathy at times. That’s the real-time explosive vibrancy that gives ultimate meaning to the moment and to our love lives. We’re likely born with an urge to bond unreservedly with outsiders but we have managed to stick with a few friends and loved ones.

A grand Creator probably knew that if creatures were to live peaceably on planets they would need to attempt to bond instantly and deeply with as many beings as possible. What a zany scenario, or is it? When we choose to be selective in our deepest loving we will remain distant from neighbors, relatives and passersby. That’s a dangerous way to live. When we disregard those outside our precious love bonds and close friends we can tend to alienate outsiders and that can lead to indifference, irritation, hostility and conceivably combativeness.

It’s too bad we can’t generate enough deep empathy on earth by just hanging around with loved ones and a few friends until the end of time. It would be a lot easier to cut out having to try to run deep with complete strangers and rely on the promise of meeting our loved ones in another life. When the Maker plopped us creatures onto a planet of a few billion peoples there had to have been a social plan that would ultimately lead to making a dent in the way earthlings connect. Why bother to cram so many living things onto a seemingly small planet? What’s the point in the overall scheme of things if we choose to bond deeply with a few dozen acquaintances and family members between our birthdays and our last breath? Do those scores of strangers we see and avoid daily have anything to do with our love range? What if world peace has remained impossible to accomplish thus far has to do with the way we love in real time? What if we were born to love unconditionally without being selective lovers and we just don’t have the desire or the nerve to love any differently?

Is it important to bond profoundly with world citizens at a faster pace than what we’re capable of doing now? What if the universe is banking on it? Astronomers claim a war is being waged between positive and negative energy forces in the universe. In fact, two teams of scientists working on that theory were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics this month. Professor Robert Kirshner, an astronomer and author of a book titled The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy and the Accelerating Cosmos, writes about cosmic wars. He points out that ‘dark energy,’ the good force, makes up about 70 percent of the cosmos while ‘dark matter,’ the wicked counter power, amounts to approximately 25 percent. Guess what? The puny remainder is comprised of galaxies, stars, planets and people. So, it would seem we’re caught in the middle or somewhere around the edges of the dark players but maybe we tiny contributors provide a modicum of love energy that can add to the good side. That would be love ENERGY in real time and not love MATTER over a long time.

The good professor informs us that “In the cosmic setting, the fate of the universe depends on a tug of war between dark matter, which is trying to slow down the expansion of the universe, and dark energy, which is trying to speed things up.” Can love ENERGY between humans on a single planet affect the cosmic order and if so how? Who knows? If cow dung can provide a source of viable ENERGY – Bio-gas to generate electricity, for example, why not…Nah, let’s not go there when referring to love emissions. On-the-spot unconditional compassion may provide enough oomph to nudge the masses to energize an entire planet, a source and force that might break through the stratosphere and add another fraction of a percent to the Dark force that’s bent on speeding up the expansion of the universe. Well, if we haven’t tried it…

H.L Mencken mused “The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him a ride?” (Prejudices: Third Series, 1922).

We don’t have a lot of time on such a ride so if we plan to do something to contribute to the betterment of the cosmos we’ll need to do a whole lot of real-time lovin.’

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“A good scare is worth more to a human than good advice.” Edgar Watson Howe.

Liv, my wife, sent off for some protest songs from the 60s. I was surprised how relevant the lyrics were for our day. When I listened to Barry McGuire’s song, “The Eve of Destruction,” written over 45 years ago I realized we’re just as mired in world chaos today as then. He opens with

‘The eastern world, it is exploding
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’

But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.’

Is there a way to cause religious peoples to risk stepping out of their temples to engage with the world at-large, not as a charitable act toward the helpless or to invite outsiders to join their congregations, but merely as human beings daring to bond with unfamiliar mortals on dangerous soil?

John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, challenged members to step out of their Anglican temples in the 18th century and enter into the lives of off-putting, disenfranchised peoples of his day. It was a risky venture into hostile territory that most settled pew sitters must have seen as a terrifying undertaking. Those who left those pews had to have experienced soaring heart beats. Wesley realized the church of that day had insulated itself from the real world.

Methodists today may be in a similar state. A few congregations are addressing the needs of the homeless and hungry courageously and effectively in the greater community but for the most part, the commitment to such ministries don’t go much beyond making contributions through collection plates. We wouldn’t want to have our heart rates monitored in those moments. I’ll have to confess that my Methodist heart rate went off the charts during the protest marches in the 60s and has never quite reached that level of apprehension since.

Wesley, in an attempt to make the world his parish, found a way to break out of a self-contained mode of doing ministry and that venture in and of itself may have enlivened the members physically, mentally and spiritually. Those who remained in their pews would have learned his venturous disciples in the field paid a price for their commitment to the outside world.

C.E Vulliamy, a biographer of John Wesley, writes about the kind of hostility Wesley’s followers witnessed through their endeavors. An angered observer pulled the nose of Charles Wesley, John’s brother. Ah, but in time the endeavors got ugly. In one town followers were clobbered on the head with brass pans. On a preaching tour the speaker was struck in the eye and later lost his sight. Eventually one of Wesley’s leaders was brutally struck and killed.

Methodists may need to consider launching risky ministries as an unconditional gift to the outside world. We would not be going out to bring outsiders into our folds but daring to meet them on their turf with no evangelistic agenda with those who may not like our country, even hate it.

Hope is being generated among the Arab Spring protesters but frustration, anger and rage is escalating over how to deal with immigration matters. Bishop John Shelby Spong in a treatise on the Oslo shooting disaster states “We live in a dangerous world. Ours is an increasingly interdependent world, a world in which human differences are inescapable. No one can hide today inside a tribal enclosure. Ours is a world in which yesterday’s religious verities are fading and nothing has yet emerged to replace them.” (‘The Tragedy in Norway and its Meaning.” JohnShelbySpong.com web site)

Americans may be the pew sitters in these times, unable or unwilling to venture forth in an effort to care for the world beyond providing financial aid. It may seem ludicrous to suggest getting off our Methodist duffs in the midst of an economic disaster but entering into a global fray might be what we need to get our Methodist hearts pumping hard and out of control again.

The United Methodist Doctrine of Experience, a primary tenet of our denomination suggests “…all human experience affects our understanding of religious experience…A new awareness of such experiences can inform our appropriation of scriptural truths and sharpen our appreciation of the good news of the kingdom of God.”

If we can imagine “all human experience” referring to engaging with scary aliens around the world, a “new awareness” can imply that risky encounters with outsiders can perhaps partially shape and sharpen our religious perspectives. In other words, we can hold back imparting the scriptural word to others and dare to meet foreigners in a terrifying, emotion-laden king’s-x zone that does not let our scriptural or doctrinal beliefs into the interchange. When a stranger senses the other’s beliefs are in abeyance for even a fleeting moment she/he may be capable of cherishing in that instant an unqualified gift from the other and not sentiments belonging to, or represented by, the counterpart’s religious order.

An article in a senior magazine titled “Talking Can Stop Hate” describes the harrowing but enlightening travels of the author, Akbar Ahmed, Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, D.C. (a Methodist institution, by the way). He invited two of his honor students on a trip through nine countries in three major regions of Islam where they risked conversing with radical Muslims. Dr. Ahmed contends, “We can see into the souls of others only if we take the trouble, and the risk, to visit one another. Only then can change occur. And we saw such change on our trip: in ourselves and in others…Dialogue is the hope for the future. It will make our world” AARP magazine (Mar/Apr 2007)

William James, a world renown psychologist, may have had the likes of the pioneering Methodist leader in mind when he suggested “What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war; something heroic that will speak to man as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved to be incompatible.” (The Will to Believe, (1897)

Hey, such endeavors might be daunting but maybe not as scary as getting our noses tweaked or our heads whacked with brass pans. You may want to stay away from joining in on preaching tours. I’ve had a few interested colleagues indicate they would like to help out on such a cause…by recommending a couple of their cantankerous lay people. They were kidding, right?

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“As a member of an escorted tour you don’t even have to know the Matterhorn isn’t a tuba.”
Temple Fielding, Fielding’s Guide to Europe, 1963.

David Brooks, the NY Times columnist, came through with another topic that caught my attention. He’s fascinated with social patterns in cultures. The journalist travels the world extensively and makes a good case for experiencing people on his ventures as opposed to merely looking at them. Brooks contends “…when you come back from vacation, you primarily treasure the memories of Who – the people you met from faraway places, and the lives you came in contact with.”

On a recent visit to Africa Brooks and his family stayed in seven different safari camps, ventures that allowed him to compare how he and his loved ones engaged with their hosts. He was impressed with the uncomplicated camps where staff members were ‘friendly, warm and familial.’ They were often able to interact with the kitchen staff and get to know their table partners. He recalled a Yiddish word that describes such friendly surroundings. The term Haimish connotes ‘warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality.’

Americans would do well to go after the Who and not only the Where when making vacation plans but convivial connections may not get us where we really need to go. I settled for Haimish-like locations and encounters in my early travels. When I bumped into an Australian chap in a Bed and Breakfast home I realized we travelers have to meet the Who folk one-on-one. The encounters have to go way beyond feeling warm and domesticated. I doubt if we’re capable of bonding significantly with vacationers, table partners and dining staff members by relating intimately with them apart from singling them out.

My Australian table partner and I happened to be the first guests up for breakfast on a beautiful morning in Ireland in 2003, soon after our country made the pre-emptive shock-and-awe strike on Iraq. We sat together and chatted about the weather, the food and the local setting. We eventually talked about our family life, our hobbies and interests. It was a pretty convivial interchange until we began to discuss how we felt about our recent retirements and admitted we were dealing with what might be called ‘low-grade depression.’ That’s when the discourse went from feeling warm, genial and safe and entered into a mood of some fear and shaky trust. We opened up on several personal concerns and after two-and-a-half hours of intense dialogue we admitted we didn’t want to go our separate ways.

I knew it might lead to some uneasiness and possibly estrangement between us but when he stood up to leave I asked point blank “What do you think of America these days?” We had stayed away from discussing the Iraq war.

My new friend paused and seemed slightly nervous. He finally repled “You don’t want to know.”

“We Americans need to know what the U.S. looks like from the outside.”

He was silent for several seconds. “No, we’ve had a great time together. Let’s not ruin what we’ve had, mate.”

“Look, we will never meet again and I think I can take it, and hopefully we can step away from each other with our brief friendship intact.”

He explained “This is very difficult. OK, let me start by saying I have always loved your country since I was a kid…but…”

“But what?”

“I guess I will continue to love the states but you’re overplaying the world cop role way too much, and right now you are….ah, are you ready for this? Presently you are arrogant, insulated —holes! Sorry.”

“I agree.”

When we hugged I gave him my card and urged him to let me know when he thinks we Yanks have stopped being —holes. I’ve not heard from him, so…

Someone once said to me many years ago, and it may have been my fiancée, “You’ve got to be a candidate for the Attention Deficit Disorder syndrome.” I’m pretty sure she would have mentioned it lovingly. First, I looked up the definition for ‘candidate’ before finding out about the disorder condition because I assumed it primarily referred to running for office. Big mistake; Webster used the example ‘as a candidate for a mental institution.’ My bride-to-be was a newly-arrived foreigner so I let the designation slide.

She may have had it right. If when I get into my car and immediately turn the radio on and frantically switch between an old-country music station, NP Radio and the CD mode does that mean I’m cracking up? Try it but make sure you stay in your lane. It makes things interesting because I only get snippets from each genre. One day I caught a bit of Buck Owens singing ‘The Streets of Bakersfield’ and I had a hankering for traveling. But before it ended I caught disjointed remarks from an author on NPR.

Hisham Matar, in an interview introducing his new book, recalls the day he sat in a bar in a South American city on September 11 when breaking news on television showed the attacks on the twin towers in New York. The patrons erupted with applause. Matar was stunned. I guess it was on the order of the locals thinking Americans were arrogant, insulated — —-. But Matar believed they were more likely thinking ‘Welcome to the real world we live in.’ However, when the tourist risked meeting people one-on-one on the street that day a few expressed concern for America regarding the tragic news. He was asked by one resident if there was anything their country can do to be of help. That can be the difference between group action and person-to-person interaction.

When we meet testy, judgmental foreigners in our travels and fail to get to candid personal feelings prior to asking what they think of us we can wind up dismissing their views. I sat next to a Canadian woman on a cross-country train ride in Norway decades ago. We stayed with small talk until she asked rather aggressively, and I thought somewhat nastily “I know how many states you have in your country, how many provinces have we in mine?”

OK, keep in mind the encounter occurred long before I learned how to be nice and run deep with grumpy strangers.

“I honestly don’t know.”

She countered sternly with “That figures!” and turned away from me.

I stood up to find another seat and snapped back “Frankly lady, I don’t give a rip!”

When we make vacation plans we need to not only consider the Who but the Why. Why bother to travel abroad without entering intensely into the lives of those who love us, don’t love us, want to love us or couldn’t care less? What if we were able and willing to take a ten-day cruise or road trip across a foreign land, for example, and forego shopping, visiting castles and chatting with the locals, and tried to bond briefly but deeply with as many residents as possible? And what if we were to return home and reveal those one-shot intimate findings to our neighbors, co-workers, faith members and as many Congressional leaders as possible? We could try to tweet it or Face Book it but chances are we would not have the fun of experiencing first-hand anger, possible flat-out rejection nor unconditional compassion.

It never hurts to quote Mark Twain, an avid traveler, on any subject. He believed “…nothing so liberalizes a being and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people.” Letters to San Francisco, 1867.

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“Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe: …the starry skies above me and the moral law within me.” Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 1788.

This is a quick take on David Brook’s recent column in the New York Times. He is discouraged over the findings of a research study of young people’s moral values. The subjects confessed they give little thought to moral decisions. One participant admitted “I would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt. I have no other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.” To me that’s a telling sign. He didn’t convey that he merely thinks about such matters.

The researchers contend they “found an atmosphere of extreme moral individualism…they’ve not been given the resources – by schools, institutions and families – to cultivate their moral obligations.”

Brooks maintains “Many of these shortcomings will sort themselves out as these youngsters get married, have kids, enter a profession or fit into more clearly defined social roles.”

I might be partially affected by families, institutions and cultural codes of conduct but I’m not sure I wrestle significantly with ethical concerns until I’ve bumped into individuals who are candid and somewhat vulnerable about how they honestly feel about a moral issue. I didn’t get much help at home or in schools as far as I can remember. My parents, teachers and mentors mainly modeled for me how to think about my fears, anger and lust but there was little if any mutual deep-seated feelings shared. Come to think the topic of lust got skipped.

Brooks ends on a hopeful note from my perspective. He states “Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart.” I assume he’s referring to what we inherit from our families, faith communities and culture. From my view Brooks relies too heavily on the influence of familial and communal nurturing and not enough on what we might have stored within us as individuals.

Two other research findings can speak to how we deal with moral matters. I may be putting too much stock in them but…

The first example: Scientists are making a case that early primates come equipped with a moral compass. Marc Hauser, an evolutionary biologist suggests in his book Moral Minds “that the brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring moral rules, a universal moral grammar similar to the neural machinery for learning language.”

The second: Neuroscientists suggest the risk to trust immediately is “probably augmenting an extremely rich model (we) come equipped with.” ‘A Study of Social Interactions Starts with a Test of Trust’ by Henry Fountain).

The latter findings offers the promise that there will be individuals out there, maybe total strangers, willing and able to risk running deep with us in an instant.

There are a few lines from a 60s song titled “Did you ever have to make up your mind?” by the Lovin’ Spoonful that have never left me.

“Did you ever have to make up your mind?
Pick up on one and leave the other behind
Sometimes you really dig a girl the moment you kiss her
and then you get distracted by her older sister
when in walks her father and takes you in line
and says ‘Better go home, son, and make up your mind.’
Then you bet you’d better finally decide!
and yes to one and let the other one ride
There’s so many changes, and tears you must hide
Did you ever have to finally decide?”

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