And until we do, all our talk about God is just sentimentality. We begin life helpless. A baby is in convulsions of fear the moment he's first left alone. Every moment she is awake she's studying the use of her eyes, ears, hands and feet, learning how to meet and avoid danger, how to achieve some new accomplishment, and so every hour loses one more terror, gains a new confidence. But somewhere we may stop.
Fear is cruel and mean.
In the week I passed in the East, I would sat with long-unseen family members and have those conversations you never seem to have until something like this, the death of my father. And then things come out. A cousin spoke of his father, my uncle Paul, who in his last days spoke candidly about our grandfather, a pillar of church and family and town. But as he approached death, my uncle finally disclosed the cruelty of my grandfather, and the fear, the suspicion, and the self-doubt he engendered in his sons. He was a stern Calvinist, and he was cruel.