THERE IS FUTILITY IN "CAN'T WIN" RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEBATES:

In retrospect, I am absolutely convinced that I was a much happier person when I was not influenced by politics and religion. In fact, for the first naive third of my 79-plus years, I flatly refused to become involved in conversations relating to either subject…And that is an unusual concession coming from someone who eventually became a newspaper editorial writer and in later years, an appropriately-designated lay pastor.

Life plays funny tricks on us and we do indeed experience twists and turns at various stages of our journey to senility. There was a time when I did not think that I had anything of significance to say and when I eventually did discover my voice, I found that by and large no one really listened. The world that I lived in had become confrontational, complicated by stubbornly-held opinions and biases.

Generally, today we beg to differ with just about everything and we do not hesitate to vent our spleens, regardless of who we offend -- even our friends. In ignorance we become over-night experts. In obscurity, we feel safe to become very bold on worldly issues. In a way, I guess, it is symptomatic of frustration in a society struggling to find a common voice at an agenda-driven-time in our history.

I struggle to balance the onset of age-related cynicism with a sensitive, non-biased, common sense rationalization of the crazy world in which we now find ourselves. There is reason in all things -- some times we just have to make an effort to find it and adjust our thinking accordingly, especially in this day and age.  Otherwise, we ere when jumping to conclusions!