Living with both fear and faith....

I lived in an almost constant state of fear for years. October is a hard month for me, not only because it was one of the incidents that I experienced, (I am reminded every time I see a fog machine,) but because it is National Domestic Violence month.

Every year, I consider wearing purple on the day of the month that he left me. I only did it once. A tiny, purple ribbon. The truth is, I don't want to dwell on what happened in the past. I don't want to be reminded. It's not really a part of my life any more. And I certainly don't want to talk about it.

But I don't have much choice about being reminded, so I choose to talk so that other people can feel a little less alone. And still more can catch a glimpse of a world I hope they never have to truly understand, no matter how much I long for understanding.

Getting out of my relationship didn't help the fear. It honed it. As with most abusive people, the loss of control made him truly rage. And that rage echoes through the years. He simply can't let it go completely, and focus on his new wife and his kids. But it's okay. Every time he tries something new, he loses a little more power. So rather than focusing on that, I want to talk about hope and faith in the midst of fear.

We all have had cause to fear. Fear not being good enough. Fear judgment. Fear loss of blessings if people knew what we were really like. Fear being alone. Fear loss of children, spiritually or physically. Fear the loss of our spouse, of being looked down on by our neighbors. Fear of not being right. Fear of sickness or death.

And often, you hear that fear cannot exist where there is faith. But it can.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ brings joy, but it is not always the type of joy that led the sons of God to shout and all the morning stars to sing. Sometimes it's a quiet joy, the joy that comes from knowing that there is someone out there, an omniscient being, an omni-benevolent God, who knows you, knows your sorrows, and is willing to sorrow with you, even if that sorrow is temporary. He doesn't tell us to buck up and get over it. He weeps along with us.

I often picture that, when I mourn with no one to hear, knowing that my mourning is really kind of stupid, after all. My kids will be fine. They are learning, in spades, to distinguish between truth and error. That's exactly what we're here for.

To me, faith is not dressed in white, holding a candle, with softly flowing hair. Faith is battle-scarred, dressed in filthy fatigues, mustering just one more smile, one more act of charity, one more attempt to drag our fellow soldiers out of harm's way. Faith makes mistakes, but keeps trying because she knows in whom she has trusted.

I can't see even the next step in front of me, and I've lived that way for years. But I keep walking, because I'd rather fall while trying to serve my God than stand still and wait for a rescue that may never come.

So for me, as hard as it is, October is a time of faith. I don't know what eternity holds. There isn't much hope in what we know so far, for me. But I know God. I know my Savior. And I choose to keep walking, whether or not I wear a purple ribbon.

Not Belief: I Know It

I do not remember the first time I knew that God was real. It seems to me that knowing Him is something I've come to over a life of fighting to reach out to Him, an infinite series of small miracles and preponderance of evidence. I know He has spoken to me, typically, through thoughts and feelings, sometimes through the actions of others, sometimes in still and mighty words.

Debate over the authenticity of the Book of Mormon has been rampant since before it was even removed from the stone-covered box in the side of a hill. I've read and heard it all, how it "cannot be true" because of ABC, and how it "cannot be explained as a lie" because of XYZ.

Despite many people saying "no one can know," I assert that their declarations are useless, for under their definition, no one knows anything. I know that it is true because after extensive testing, after seeking knowledge and pitting that knowledge against the hard rock of experience, I have heard the "song of redeeming love," and tasted God's power.

Elder James A. Cullimore spoke about "The Importance of a Personal Testimony" in each of our lives. One quote caught my attention more than any other.

"The Twelve Apostles are special witnesses of the Savior. I don’t know how many of them have actually seen a personage. They don’t talk about it. But they don’t have to, to receive their special witness that can come by the Holy Ghost."

Messy Faith

"Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed."
Isaiah 6:10

I'm exhausted. The things going on in my life have me flat-on-my-back emotionally and physically. I don't even have the energy to put up a tree this year (but I'm going to do it anyways.) School, two wards, work, friends, and family all have their demands and/or expectations, and I haven't got anything to give.

I'm not a very good Mormon. I don't make casseroles to take to people. I have no time for crafts. I can't even get my visiting teaching done (but there's always next month to do it right!, my VT Supervisor says.) I feel pretty good even when I make cookies or something to take to my neighbors. My testimony is "complicated," as I put it when trying to explain it in RS yesterday. Unlike the woman on the back row, I DO doubt, I have doubted, and I AM doubting, but I know "by my own experience" that faith and doubt most certainly can occupy the same space at the same time. Because my faith isn't about "feeling good" about something. It is, and always has been, a raw choice for me. I can't explain my turbulence of emotion and how I have come to float on top of it. But I have. I'd be a bad liberal, too, if I were one, for the exact same types of reasons.

Punishment without Volition

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn from my marriage was about agency. We often talk about agency like it's "free will" or the power to choose. But it is inarguable that the vast majority of us are very much "punished...for Adam's transgression." Here on earth, mortality is one long experience of being punished for the mistakes and sins of others.

Most of my tear-streaked nights were spent wrestling over the effect my divorce was going to have on my children and my eternity. I stayed in a marriage which had nothing to offer me almost from day one because I believed in the covenants I had made in the temple. I believed that if I was patient, things would work out for good. I thought that my ex would eventually see how much a covenant life had to offer, that he would be able to forgive me my failure, and we could work together towards God.

But that wasn't to be.

"The Spirit said...Slay him."

The first truly troubling passage in the Book of Mormon comes when Nephi, the hero of the book so far, is commanded by God to kill someone. Now, I have never killed anyone or any thing larger than a spider, but I have been present at the death of animals. Death, like birth, is a sobering and humbly powerful thing to witness, let alone do.

For several verses, Nephi rationalizes what he's about to do. He creeps into the city towards the house of Laban, pausing only to assure us that he had no idea what was about to happen. As he comes closer to Laban's house, he sees a man fallen down dead drunk. As he comes closer, he sees it is Laban and furthermore that Laban has his "exceedingly fine" sword with a hilt of PURE GOLD and a blade of precious steel (which is nearly as expensive as gold.) He's just laying there in the muck with his ultra-fancy sword strapped to him.

(I've always wondered, where were Laban's friends? Surely he got drunk WITH someone, and wasn't randomly wandering the streets. How did he come to find himself alone this night? Did his friends feel guilty the next morning, when they realized he had been killed?)

How I Stay

It's not exactly a secret that, while I defend the Church online, I often struggle with it personally. I am a divorced, still and probably endlessly single mom. I am an opinionated and outspoken female. I am great at acquaintance-friendship, but struggle mightily trying to find the real thing. My schedule means that I say "no" far more than I should, if I were a "good Mormon woman."

Departing Doctrine

I am in the awkward position of not knowing my position. Increasingly, I find myself disagreeing with almost all the ideology of both the liberal and conservative bloggers' side, and ideology of the mainstream members. It leaves me with the very real possibility that I am the one going wrong.

Increasingly, the things said over the pulpit do not resonate with me. But neither do any of the things from other perspectives. Maybe I'm just overstressed and finding myself incontrovertibly rooted in the right-now, physical world. Maybe having lived in survival mode, in fear for so long makes me utterly unlike the rest of the world, without the capacity to gnaw over the past, politics or religion. But maybe my constant tension means I'm losing touch with the Spirit.

I find myself hungry for doctrines that resonate with me, thirsty for the Waters of Life. And, as in prophecy, I do not know where to find them. My prayers consist mostly of "I don't know what to ask for, but please help." My list of Things I Need to Repent From grows longer daily, and I still haven't the least clue how to change any of them. Repentance is easier when you know what you are doing wrong, or know how to change it when you do.

#BecauseofHim

For me, the Church's campaign Because of Him immediately evoked Kelly Clarkson's song "Because of You" which perfectly captures every ounce of my fear that my choices will affect how my children see themselves. I'm busy. I don't always give them the time I wish I could when so often I'm struggling just to keep a livably clean house and cry only when they can't hear me.

"Because Of You"

I will not make the same mistakes that you did.
I will not let myself
cause my heart so much misery.
I will not break the way you did.
You fell so hard.
I've learned the hard way
to never let it get that far.

One of the main reasons I decided to divorce was for them, because I saw that I could never be a good mother while I was scrambling to figure out how to be an acceptable wife. I saw that I couldn't serve two masters: my God and my husband. Not when one was trying his hardest to keep me from becoming anything but what he wanted me to be for himself. Trying to climb out of the emotional hole I found myself in has been hard. I have a hard time wanting to let myself love again because it makes me and my children vulnerable.

No Rules, No Promises, No Happy Ending

"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead."
—Luke 10:30

Have you ever noticed that not many of Jesus' parables have an ending? We don't know what ultimately happened to the good Samaritan. Was he rewarded for his deed? Did the wounded man heal? What about the five virgins who were turned away? And the man with the one talent? Did he learn from his mistake?

Contrasted with the stories we tend to tell each other today, where sacrifice is rewarded and sorrow is always temporary, we are left wanting to know what's next. There is some primal part of us, deep in our psyches, that yearns to know that the good guys "lived happily ever after." Walt Disney built an empire on it.

My life isn't an "okay in the end" kind of life right now. I'm being held in a liminal state, where I know where I want to be, I think I know where God wants me to be, but I have no idea how to get there. It is sheer agony for someone who has always worked for a goal, tried to become something.

That happy ending seems impossible from this end of the very long, dark tunnel. So I've been digging deeply into my heart, learning to let go of tomorrow's ending so that I can dive into today's opportunities to minister. I'm not very good at it yet, but the seeds of true charity are starting to sprout.

A Turbulent Heart

“The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.” —Blaise Pascall

There are times in a person's life when she is presented with opportunities to look at herself and find herself wanting. I am naturally very hard on myself. Growing up, I somehow learned that my worth was directly linked to perfection. It seems that relationships are the greatest of these opportunities.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to live with my sister after her graduation from high school. We had not been the best of friends growing up. She was favored, and I was a truculent and sullen child. We did not have the enmity that many siblings cultivate, but we were jealous of each other for different reasons. I like to think that in the course of living together, and the trouble that we both experienced at the time, we learned to forgive and accept each other and ourselves a little bit more.

When I served my mission, I had close relationships with a few of my companions. One in particular, I think of as a sister. We had very similar outlooks on missionary work, and life in general. We both hated mushrooms (a good basis for any lasting friendship.) Most of all, she gave me confidence in myself and my unique brand of missionary work, which did not mesh well with the general missionary structure. Her influence started my feet down a long path which would eventually lead to me forgiving myself of my faults, no small task.

How the Internet is Ruining the World

And I'm not even going to talk about spelling and grammar.

More and more people are not only expressing their opinions, but doing so in a harsh, threatening, or violent way. People seem to think less and less of threatening a person's life because they are racist, or against gay marriage, or FOR gay marriage, or baptizing proxy for someone's deceased family members, or for participating in a group of people that also includes someone else with any of those qualities, or any number of opinions that are repugnant to them.

You see, anyone can have opinions nowadays, even about things that don't really affect them. Just the other day, I was solicited to sign a petition for something in an entirely other state. Which I refused because it's none of my business what another state decides to do with their law.

But that's just it, people think everything is everyone's business. Not only do we disrespect privacy, we actually castigate people who refuse ideological exhibitionism.

Faith: A Loss or a Gain?

As I sat through the Primary program yesterday, I realized that I really don't belong in Primary. The ways that these children are taught to believe in eternal families, in the power of the scriptures, listening to the prophet, are not so simple for me. I believe in celestial marriage, in the power of listening to scripture. But it's not a fairy tale with a happily ever after.

We teach that families can be together forever but not how personal agency can affect that family. We teach reading scriptures by excising scripture bites that highlight what we want to say, but we don't teach our children how to delve into the scriptures, how to rely on scripture for answers they need. We teach following the prophet, but we forget to teach spiritual discernment of the prophet's words for personal application.

I don't feel like I am qualified to teach the kinds of lessons that are in Primary. I feel like I am lying by teaching such a fluffy, empty version of my testimony. And yet, it is those very things such as the temple, scripture study, and listening to the prophet which have been my lifeline.

One of the first paragraphs of "Lectures on Faith" asks the class to reflect on their lives, and ask themselves the question, "Would you have ever sown if you had not believed that you would reap?"

Evidence of Things Not Seen

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
—Hebrews 11:1

Evidence, in a court of law, is information whereby a case is established to be true. Faith, we often think, is believing in something without evidence. So how can faith BE evidence? How can a belief have substance?

Because faith is not just belief.

The Myth of Happiness

I read a recent Salon.com article about a non-LDS woman who finds herself obsessed with Mormon Mommy-type blogs. Now, although I am both Mormon and a Mommy, and though I blog, this blog is not really a Mormon Mommy type blog (though I do sort of have one). I'm not really sure what type of blog this is, to be honest. I suppose, like the title suggests, it documents my spiritual and emotional life, the things I think about and struggle with on an internal level.

I don't know that most of what I blog about here are strictly "happy" things. They are faithful and hopeful, I hope, but not particularly "happy".

In reading the comments, I noted that an overwhelming number of the comments treated the Mormon Mommy blogs as fake. Whether they supposed they were commercial or evangelical efforts, the general consensus seemed to be that "Mormon women cannot be as happy as they seem, so they are being deceptive. Deception is for a reason, therefore they must be getting something out of this." Plenty of people cited the old Utah Women Take Antidepressants study, many others delighted in highlighting the "dark side" that must exist.

Of course there is some filtering when it comes to blogs. Whatever the main focus of the blog, not everything in a blogger's life ends up online. But these women have chosen to highlight the things that bring them joy. Very few of them sound to me like their "faking it until they make it" online. They genuinely seem to find things to be happy about. Of course, it is possible that if they were suffer some life-altering disaster, such as divorce or losing a child, that the walls would come tumbling down, but as NieNie has demonstrated, this isn't necessarily the case.

I think this is the key. Too often, we expect to be happy when certain conditions are met. But I believe that true happiness is generally unconditional. It is a choice. I've had a really hard time in my life the past several years. And yet, there are many things that have brought me immense joy. Some of those things I remember to chronicle in my "mommy blog", but some of them are just for me. Some of these things are things that others might not expect me to find joy in, given my circumstances, such as the doctrine of eternal families, having occasional alone time, watching my children grow.

True, I could look at the lives of some of these women and be jealous. To be honest, sometimes I am. The husband/provider, wife/caretaker dichotomy is something I worked really hard for, believed in, and lost. But though I mourn that loss for myself, I can also find joy in the evidence that it can work, and I find so much joy in the wonderful blessings I do still have.

So I don't think that happiness is a myth. I just don't think it is what some people think it is. And maybe that's why so many are "obsessed" with Mormon Mommy blogs. They sense something beyond the surface of reupholstering chairs, photographing children in pumpkin patches, and keeping a spotless house. Something that has nothing to do with lifestyle.

They sense the reality of happiness.

To Know that Jesus is the Christ

I'm not exactly sure when I first knew that the stories were true, that Jesus was real. My parents taught me to turn to the scriptures when I needed answers, to listen to the promptings of the Spirit for comfort and guidance. My first clear memory of a personal experience with scripture helping me happened when I was six or seven years old.

According to witnesses (mostly my mother), I was a very gregarious child. One of her favorite stories is of me jumping into the arms of a complete stranger at the grocery store. But in growing up, somehow that changed. I developed a very strong sense of caution when dealing with other people. I learned not to trust smiles, that kindly old gentlemen might be predators and friendly children might only be looking for an opening to attack.

When I was in college, I began going through a very painful internal struggle with myself. I realized that I had closed myself off from human connections because of my fear. I remember one night when neither of my roommates were home, I was wracked with silent tears as I visualized peeling away layer after layer of emotional armor which I had built over the years. Literally shaking, I remember the distinct impression of arms being wrapped around me. I remember not wanting to move for fear that the sensation would leave.

Similar experiences have happened to me since then, and I have been impressed with strong mental and emotional inclinations at various times, which I believe are from the Spirit. There have been times when those impressions have quite literally saved my life.

I have been going through a hard time over the past two years. In the aftermath of escaping an abusive marriage to the one person I allowed to get deeper into my heart than anyone before my children were born, I have found myself fighting against layering myself once again with emotional armor and closing myself off to the possibility of being hurt that deeply again.

But I know it is important to remain open and vulnerable to pain because that is what my Savior did. The angel asked Nephi once, "Knowest thou the condescension of God?" Like Nephi, I can reply that I know that God loves His children, but that I don't know the meaning of everything that has happened on this earth. More than two thousand years ago, a man who was God came to this earth, opening Himself up to all that mortality means; the pain, fear, discomfort, betrayal and sorrow.

Like me, He knows what it is like to be betrayed and rejected of those He loved most, those He called His "jewels". He knows what it is like to long for a place that feels like home. He knows what it is like to face His duty to the Father only to be afraid and wish that His life were something other than it was. And yet, He came. He came and He finished what He was sent to do.

I know that He is real as I know my own heart is real, for I have felt Him. I know that He is present in this great Mortality Play, and that He knows me. And for a God like that, I proclaim, "Hallelujah!" For a man like that, I will gladly fall to my knees and worship. For my Savior, I will continue to fight to remain open and vulnerable as my offering to an Almighty God, in the hopes of serving Him by serving His children.

I know He is, and He lives. Glory to God, Hallelujah!

Tochter Zion, freue dich!
Jauchze, laut, Jerusalem!
Sieh, dein König kommt zu dir!
Ja er kommt, der Friedenfürst.
Tochter Zion, freue dich!
Jauchze, laut, Jerusalem!

Zion's daughter, O rejoice!
Shout aloud, Jerusalem!
Lo, thy King doth come to thee,
Yea, He comes, the Prince of Peace!
Zion's daughter, O rejoice!
Shout aloud, Jerusalem!

Hosianna, Davids Sohn,
Sei gesegnet deinem Volk!
Gründe nun dein ewig' Reich,
Hosianna in der Höh'!
Hosianna, Davids Sohn,
Sei gesegnet deinem Volk!

Hail, hosanna, David's Son,
Be Thou to Thy people blest!
Thine eternal kingdom come!
Praise be sung to Thee on high!
Hail, hosanna, David's Son,
Be Thou to Thy people blest!

Hosianna, Davids Sohn,
Sei gegrüßet, König mild!
Ewig steht dein Friedensthron,
Du, des ew'gen Vaters Kind.
Hosianna, Davids Sohn,
Sei gegrüßet, König mild!

Hail, hosanna, David's Son,
Be Thou welcome, gentle King!
Firmly stands Thy throne of peace,
Thou, the Father's only Son!
Hail, hosanna, David's Son,
Be Thou to Thy people blest!

Tochter Zion, Freue Dich!
Heinrich Ranke (1798-1876)
Translation by H. Brueckner

9/11 and the Mosque: It's Not About Religion

I know there's a great deal of furor about the Mosque overlooking Ground Zero. I don't get it. I don't get it for a few reasons, some less noble than others.

First, I don't get 9/11. I know that is borderline unpatriotic, but I just don't get why it was so monumental. Maybe it is because as I was growing up, bomb drills were as much a part of the school practice as fire drills. Except, I never experienced a fire at school. Two of the "bomb drills" I went through were real. I had to carry an identification card around with me to get to my house. I've waited in line for over an hour just to get home so the bomb dogs and guys with the oversized dentist mirrors could go through every single car queued up to get on base. I lived as a child knowing that my house could be bombed, that my dad could be killed. That I could be killed in a heartbeat. It wasn't frightening, it was just how life was. 9/11 didn't carry the same punch for me that it seems to carry for most people.

Plus, I was in Germany when the attack occurred. Not only did I not live through the national panic, I experienced the anti-American rallies in the aftermath. I even suggested to my companion once or twice that we take off our missionary name tags so we could travel incognito and not start a riot. I worked hard to improve my accent in German rather than worrying about vocabulary so I could pass as British or Dutch in a pinch. I never had to use that, at least, but I was trained by life as a child how to blend in when necessary and knew it didn't hurt to be careful. I don't think all military kids learn these things, but my dad always encouraged us to immerse ourselves in our resident culture.

Which brings me to second: 9/11 wasn't about religion. It was about politics first and culture second. A good part of my life was spent in a first-world country that is not America. I lived a couple of years on a third-world island. I have seen for myself the range of emotions towards Americans ranging from excited interest through disdain to contempt. I have seen what we Americans do that justifies those sentiments.

If the attacks were about religion, there are many better religious sites that could have been destroyed. But there were no attacks on the Vatican, nothing against Notre Dame. The targets were 100% political and 100% American—a country which theoretically professes no religious alignment.

So why not let them build a Mosque near Ground Zero? Even in a worst-case scenario and the alarmists are right, that it is mockery of our culture and the Christian religion, so what? Why indulge ourselves in the self-centeredness which the rest of the world despises instead of celebrating the parts of America which make us great—our tolerance, our open arms to conflicting ideologies and points of view? We can always reclaim that mosque as a badge of honor, reform it into the gesture of mutuality they claim it is. And if the alarmists are wrong, and it really is intended as a gesture of goodwill, it is churlish and hypocritical of us to refuse it.

Why I Still Belong to the LDS Church

I hear so many accounts of people leaving the LDS Church because they found more spiritual growth outside of the Church, rather than inside with its "boring meetings", "dreadful art", "horrid music" and lack of spiritual stimulation. Other people leave because they can't reconcile the divinity of the Church with its mundane, careless, insulting people. Others leave because the Church asks too much, or too little, or gives too little or not the right way.

I had an experience recently where I was sitting in the foyer of someone else's ward building, waiting for the sacrament to be brought out. I felt very alone and unwelcome.

As I was sitting and fretting about my place in the Church and what others thought of me in it, I had one of those rare unmistakable messages from divinity enter my mind.

"This is not their Church, it is mine. And I say you have a place here."

I had forgotten.

Do You Believe in Evolution?

An interesting question was brought to my attention in a recent interview between the media (Reuters) and an LDS member. "Do you believe in evolution?" I would have to say, as a trained scientist and a believing member of the LDS Church, "NO!" I find it incredibly disturbing that such a question even exists.

Before I go further, let me make a few things clear. I love science. I graduated with a degree in pre-veterinary medicine. Zoology is fascinating to me. I trained in the scientific method. I trained in writing theses. I've analyzed experiments and reproduced them in lab. I miss my scientific field with a hunger that has made me consider cutting my earning power in half just to get my latex-wrapped fingers around a test tube filled with blood agar. I. Love. Science. I love science almost as much as I love animals, which is why I find the question of whether or not I "believe" in evolution so dismaying. It has nothing to do with my sincere and deep religious conviction. In fact, the religious side of me leaves far more room for a "belief" in evolution or its like. My scientific reason, however, cannot accept that science is being formed into the Church of the People.

Science is nothing more than a method used to break down the workings of the world and find out how things are. It was never meant to define the great "Why" that religion addresses. By its very nature, science has nothing to do with belief. In the scientific method, one 1) observes. Through those observations, one drafts a 2) hypothesis. One then 3) tests the hypothesis in as controlled an environment as possible. During the testing, one 4) observes the results. Then one 5) adjusts the hypothesis and begins again. Once a hypothesis has been refined and is provable in multiple experiments at multiple times, it graduates to a 6) theory. Theories are hypotheses with the weight of reproducibility behind them. If a theory becomes so provable (and so concise) that it becomes a law, it has become as assured as possible under the tenets of science and other hypotheses and theories are built on that law. (Bear in mind that even laws can change, though rarely, in science.)

Nowhere in the scientific method (the basis of science) is there room for belief. There is room for guesses, there is room for educated guesses, there is room for reason, but there is no room for faith. Therefore, one cannot by the very nature of science "believe" in a scientific theory, such as the Theory of Evolution.

What is more galling is that the theory of evolution (bearing in mind that I am speaking of MACROevolution, or the change from one species to another, and not microevolution, or the adaptation of existing traits) is not even truly developed to the point that it can honestly be called a "theory." Macroevolution has not been proven in the lab. Macroevolution has not even been satisfactorily observed in the natural environment. The evidence for macroevolution is sparse and largely circumstantial. Although microevolution is perhaps consistent enough to be elevated to the status of a theory, it has not been quantified, has not been refined and cannot be called anything more than a theory in its fledgling state, not having moved into the power of a scientific law. Macroevolution is little more than extrapolation built on the observable evidence of microevolution. Unfortunately, the term "Hypothesis of Evolution" doesn't sound nearly so titillating as "Theory of Evolution."

So, my answer to the question, "do you believe in evolution?" is a resounding "NO!" I like the theory of evolution. I think it is very probably accurate. I think both the concepts of micro- and macroevolution are fascinating. I can't wait to see what more is discovered about evolution, but my interest in evolution is not a matter of belief or faith. The media has fastened upon Darwin's concept and turned it into a weapon in the science-versus-religion smackdown. Sadly, for the media, there is nothing that science could ever do to disprove or prove the existence of God. But then, that is not the purpose of science. Nor is self-verification the purpose of God.

I love science, but it is not a religion and never can be. It is tragic that people are so afraid of faith in the unknown that they turn to a discovery process like science for their self-affirmation. It is tragic that people need to lean on the seen so heavily they mock or ignore the unseen. However, if people insist on venerating the God of Scientific Theory, they should at least have the decency to recognize that the Religion of Science requires just as much faith as orthodox religion. At least, according to Reuters it does.

Perhaps this is the "great and abominable Church" spoken of in scripture. Move over, Catholics, here come the Scientists.