GroshLink

The conclusion of the NY Times' Magazine section article Getting Religion caught my attention. After crying ourselves to sleep last night in prayer, the Father has given us the grace to open our eyes with faith this morning. As children of God who rest upon His Word and walk in His Presence with the people of God across time, space, and creation, we accept and embrace living in faith today and waiting for the grace for tomorrow. Our prayer is that we will look around and find you in part of the family of God.

I thought I was out of that business, but maybe not. It took years to acquire the education I missed as a young man, an education not only in books but in a certain comportment toward myself and the world around me. Doubt, like faith, has to be learned. It is a skill. But the curious thing about skepticism is that its adherents, ancient and modern, have so often been proselytizers. In reading them, I've often wanted to ask, "Why do you care?" Their skepticism offers no good answer to that question. And I don't have one for myself. When my daughter and I discuss her budding thoughts about the cosmos and morality, or when my students come to my office inspired or baffled by a book, something quickens within me. The Greeks spoke of eros, the Christians of agape and caritas. I don't know what to call it, I just know it is there. It is a kind of care. It is directed toward others, but also, perhaps, toward that young man lying on his bed, opening the Bible for the very first time.

-- Mark Lilla is a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. His book on modern theology and politics, The Stillborn God, will be published by Knopf next year.