dougsoderstrom11 Jul 2004

Dear Dovina:

My faith is not to be envied.

I have my doubts just like anyone else. And often, the questions I ask, are asked with a whole lot of fear and trembling! In many ways, I would like to be able to go back to "the religious beliefs of my youth," when I was content "to be told the answers." But I cannot! I cannot go back, because of the questions that the good mind that God gave to me seem to "force me" to ask.

When I was content to be "told the answers by others, I had only a high school education. But now, four college degrees later, I seem to have no choice but to take seriously the questions that seem to come so naturally to me at this point in my life. In some ways, I see my capacity to ask such questions as "a gift from God." But at other times, I feel as though they (such questions) are a great burden that I wish could be lifted from me.


I am a college teacher.... and it is my belief that a good education consists not of answers, but rather to the continued asking of better and better questions; questions that become increasinly more incapable of being answered!

When I was young, my faith gave me security without meaning, but now my faith brings me a great deal of meaning, but with a great deal of existential anxiety!

It is a choice that one must make..... and I cannot tell another what to do.....because I do not even know for sure if what I am doing is right. It just seems that it is what I must do...... come Hell or highwater!