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"Isn’t it funny how modern “hedonistic” consumer societies brutally work their employees for mind numbingly long hours? Meanwhile the committed Christians, not at all hedonistic or epicurian in tradition, by and large go home and have a nice dinner with the family . . . which is a very nice way to live."

DO YOU REALIZE just now what you were able to encapsulate such deep terms of TRUTH into such a succinct, short sentence?! I and others could write a book on this theory and problem here in Japan. I would very much be interested in hearing you expand on it, either here, if appropriate, or FreepMail, GF.

I don’t really know if I can expand much more on the thought other than to say that my experience as a Christian has been that I have aligned myself with God (the deepest truth) when I live as he wills and I separate myself from God when I live as if there is no reality apart from my material understanding, my material desires, and the understanding and desires of the worldly around me. Christianity is a mountain, not at all symmetrical except from a distance, with strange cliffs and unexpected peaks, yet when I live with the faith that those cliffs and peaks are real I find that they are perfectly formed for the life of a man, and when I ignore them I find myself falling or walking up an unnecessarily steep grade.

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Psalm 14.