SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN: One of my biggest challenges right now is finding something to believe in. When I was young, it was easy to find things to believe in. Lots of things seemed good enough to put your faith and hope in. But after a while, those things showed their dark sides. And sometimes, the things that you would never believe in showed you their brighter sides. (Even the Republican Party? Well, OK, maybe that’s a stretch). Everything started equivocating. So I became a man without a cause; well, no one overwhelming cause, anyway.

I’m finishing up a book about Dan and Phil Berrigan, and whether you agree or disagree with what they did and why they did it, you have to admire them for believing in something. I myself work in a prosecutor’s office — arguably, the sworn enemy of the Berrigans and their ultra-resistance anti-war tactics. And yet, I sometimes see people who truly believe in criminal prosecution (not that I don’t believe in dealing with crime, but I don’t get all excited and swell with pride when I think about the actual system that we have in place to apprehend, prosecute and punish criminals). And I have to admire and envy those people almost as much as I do the Berrigans. They have something to believe in. (Hey, there are things to be said for the rule of law within a constitutional democracy and the maintenance of civilized conduct).

Yea, that’s one of the biggest battles in life — finding something to believe in, and to keep on believing in it.