For the first time in my life I had, today, the pleasure of listening to A Prairie Home Companion, which, as a fun fact I believe to be correct, began in some sense at Saint John's. So there St. Thomas; we have Keillor. Win. Fecund facts aside, he was telling this story about these two women who were traveling, and at least one-I came into the story half-way through- was a minister, and she, well he, said something that resonated completely, just a simple, throw-away phrase that not only landed on this witless writer but also, shockingly, stuck. She said, "Too much piety and too little faith," and I think this is, for me, one of the biggest stumbling blocks I have as I continue on my spiritual journey. Everywhere around me, I see the rituals upheld, the rosaries prayed, the masses attended, the communion taken, but I don't feel the faith. I feel respect and that all-important "fear of the Lord," but faith... it seems to be lacking.

Not, of course, that I know what faith is, or that I am in the least bit capable of speaking on what faith is, so while I try to figure it out, I'm keeping two things in mind, one said by Abraham Lincoln and one by Kurt Vonnegut. First, the Emancipator, "When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion;" then, the writer, "There's only one rule I know of babies, goddamnit you have to be kind."