On the fall of Roe

Your beliefs are sacred, whatever they may be.

We all need something - some framework, some story, some science, some shortcut - to explain this inexplicable and confounding and marvelous world. Our time here is short, too short to see it all, to try on every theory, to test and confirm we're doing it right. So we adopt a storyline, and that helps us find grounding and direction in the great unknowable experience of this sentient life.

I once believed in that big book, too. I saw it not as an anthology of historical documents but as something we called "divinely inspired.” That belief animated my entire being and gave meaning to my youth. Today I appreciate music and poetry and art and civility and generosity and service and the innate dignity of my fellow human travelers because of the words of that big book.

But I read other books, too, and learned other stories. I met so many of my fellow travelers whose experiences deepened my own understanding of me, of them, of us, of what we're doing here. My story changed.

I'll defend your right to hold your beliefs as sacred. I only ask, however, that you do the same for me.