Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies. Other beliefs are bonds in a universal community where sincere differences beautify the pattern. Some beliefs weaken a person's self hood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness. Other beliefs nurture self confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth.
Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world.
Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life. My observations suggest that the drive to feed the empty soul will be with us for some time, as we weigh the significance of the failure of consumerism to satisfy. I am convinced that the key to a true spiritual renewal is to be found in those expressions of faith which root us once more in this natural world, which help us to see ourselves as unique and precious expressions of that same eternal force and drive which shaped the stars and gathered the galaxies, that eternal same force and drive which set the earth spinning around the sun, that same eternal force and drive which called forth and sustains life on this planet. And I am convinced that the key to spiritual renewal is a religious community which is driven not by the market but by a strong sense of commitment to a core of central values open to the future and affirming the other while retaining a strong sense of self. My life has been spent in search of that kind of spiritual renewal.