Last night, I bumped into someone who I used to be very close to twenty years ago. He is a writer and some of his essays are available on-line. After we stopped hanging out, he kind of became a pot-head. A few years later, he became a born-again Christian. Now he writes reviews for a mainline Protestant publication. I read a few of them yesterday.

I don't understand the presumption of people who are convinced that they have the only true path to salvation. This old friend writes about the spiritual aspects of the music he reviews. Leave, for a moment, the arbitrary nature of any kind of review and just think about how rediculous it would be to attempt to review pop music based on it's SPIRITUAL merits. I love music and I use music as part of my spiritual practice but I couldn't say music is Good or Bad based on the overt spiritual tone of it's creator, or lack thereof.

How could I say that this is the Right Answer? The world is full of people and most of those people believe something entirely differently from me, even those who's beliefs are similar. How do people believe that their interpretation of things is the only correct one? Even within mainline Protestantism, many people believe that their denomination, or even their church, is the one with the real truth. It seems so arrogant. And selfish. And divisive.

I would imagine that there must be a great comfort in KNOWING but then what does one do with doubt? I don't think life is good/bad, right/wrong, black/white. I don't believe there are many hard truths. I think there are many truths and my job is to find the one that God is leading me to. As I grow and change, my truth may change. My truth may change because God is forcing me to grow. How in the world could I presume to tell another what to believe; what is true?