Faith: A choice, a yearning to be more than an evolutionary dead-end

Take an evangelical, fundamentalist preacher's kid and mix him with a liberal arts education. 

Season him with more than a few decades of living, and you either come up with an agnostic, a metaphysical schizophrenic, or a believer, stripped down the basics of his faith.

I confess to, at times, flying like a confused, sometimes angry or at least disheartened moth, too close to the flames of the first two fates. The journey to faith — my own faith, not necessarily that of my parents — has been occasionally exhilarating, often painful, and all too human.

It has been, philosophically, an eclectic odyssey. That likely was inevitable, considering my History and Journalism double major and a minor in Psychology, followed by a career in journalism (a petri dish for cynicism, as professions go).

Ultimately, it is human nature that convinces me my faith — albeit skinned of what I concluded were doctrinal and theological assertions created not by an infinite God, but by finite human minds — makes more sense than pure secular humanism.

I could (but don't worry, I won't) write reams on why I find this so. Let a couple observations suffice:

— The fact that our species has not ceased warring with itself since it began, committing genocide on ever-larger scales, makes me bitterly laugh at the idea we are the pinnacle of sentient evolution on Earth. 

 

We may boast how much more sophisticated and civilized our high-tech, educated society is now compared to our stick-wielding, tree- and cave-dwelling ancient ancestors, but we continue to produce the same rotten fruit.

It's still about territory and resources, and who has the right — or might — to claim them. And since such brutal calculus always makes our "better angels" wince, we still use politics, religion, culture and racism as excuses and justification for dehumanizing and dismissing the Other.

— Yet, we desire to be more. I would argue that we were created for more, but are broken. Despite all the pain and madness humankind inflicts on itself and its planet, goodness persistently bubbles up within individuals, and reform movements. 

Changes for the better, history teaches us, are as finite as our bodies . . . yet we continue to reach down to the fallen with one hand, even as we bludgeon our enemies with the other.

So, faith. Because without it, without the saving grace of our Maker, we will remain stuck, either as an evolutionary dead end, or a creation to be ultimately redeemed, reborn and perfected.

I prefer to believe the latter.

Musings from the Beltway: Newspapers' demise and an informed electorate

This will be the first of several blogs from my recent trip to the East Coast and the Beltway.

I guess that chronologically is usually the way to go with such endeavors, but my mind works differently.

Instead, I will dispense with the event that, even 1,800 miles removed, affected me personally the most: the massive layoffs at The Salt Lake Tribune.

It is where I do my day job; it has been for the past 15 years since I escaped, finally, an unstable and often malevolent boss at the national news service where I had worked for 18 years, three months, 12 days and 5.5 hours.

I learned about the layoffs, my good fortune and the misery of the unlucky, in a telephone call from my editor.

The newspaper industry's woes are well known, and they have not skipped the Trib. In the past two years we have lost half our staff, and cuts that came, unexpected and deep, at my vacation's mid-point were devastating.

So, I kept my job; 20 percent of the remaining staff did not. What the future holds only God knows. I may work at the Trib until I retire in 5-10 years or so, or I may find myself joining my now-unemployed colleagues when the next unexpected cuts come.

End of the year budget reviews come to mind, though -- as we have been told with lessening conviction by management in the past 3-4 layoffs -- this latest, most painful cutback is hoped to be the last.

I put my trust in God . . . and continue to beat the bushes for freelance work with an eye to the time when I may have to depend on such opportunities to pay the mortgage.

So, there's my personal reaction. My professional reaction is far deeper: I fear for our already tattered republic is professional, balanced and investigative journalism disappears, along with newspapers.

Not that newspapers have done well, in my opinion, in living up to their supposed commitment to fairness and balance in reporting. They have not done so.

Still, they provide the best foundation for those informational elements that keep the electorate informed.

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson was abused horribly by the press, but still held that a free, unfettered journalism was essential to our nation's political health:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be," he said.

As I visited the monuments and memorials spread along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., recently -- including one honoring Jefferson -- I mourned for my departed colleagues and wondered how the electorate will be adequately informed in the future as they make choices that affect us all.