Before I begin with today's installment of the Ecumenical UU, I want to share a thought for the day that was shared with me this morning. The Ecumenical UU found himself waiting ecumenically in the parking lot of the First Centenary United Methodist Chuch, and enjoying a conversation with a very pleasant gentleman who was a parishioner there. It was a long wait, and we had an opportunity to get to know one another a little. My first impression of him was very positive. During the course of conversation, he shared with me a little about his grandchildren, and the kind of world that they were inheriting. He quoted this to me from a calendar, and it struck me as humorous and true at the time. Now, it serves as a good introduction to the eUU column because. Like the subject of today's column, this thought was wise, but not entirely true:

There's nothing wrong with kids today that twenty years won't fix.

I've certainly been an exception to that rule. Nearly twenty years out from being a kid myself, I find that I still think I know it all, I'm still chronically unthoughtful, and I still behave in unnecessarily reckless or dangerous ways. On the other hand, I've improved quite a bit in all of those areas during the last couple of decades. Maybe in another ten years, I'll get there, too.

Certainly, I've also seen a fair number of others who carry relics from their youth through middle and into old age: arrogance, bitter attitudes, dangerous habits, what have you. But there is still wisdom in the saying. The gentle countenance and kindly manner of the man sitting next to me in the church parking lot, probably living through his seventh decade, reassured me that people really do mellow with time and experience, at least some of the time. That's a comfort to know.

My intention all week was to talk about the teachings of Jesus found in the Gospel, and to refute the notion, originated by C.S. Lewis, that one could only acknowledge the value in some of those teachings if one submitted to the doctrine of Christ's divinity. But, I'm not up to doing that. I've had a tough weekend, and I don't have the energy and focus to put into a topic like that. I did, however, come across this discussion at One Good Move, borrowed from the famous Butterflies and Wheels, about whether the epistemic or consequentialist question belongs "first" in a discussion of religion. Should one settle the "truth" of a proposition about religion before worrying about its "consequences"?

I expect that people's answers to that question will lie on the side of "truth" when they are more radical - be they fundamentalist Christians or be they militant atheists... and that this group will tend to take the narrowest view of what is "true". I think that people of a more moderate bent, be they nice gentlemen from the parking lot of First Centenary UMC or be they ecumincal UU's who have no belief in the supernatural at all, will take a broader view of what is "true" and try to recognize the consequentialist value even in what is false.

And, I'll say more about this tonight, after I've mentally reviewed my notes and reflected on the subject over the course of the day today.

(to be continued...)