I had been allowed to believe in man’s innate goodness for the twenty-two years of my life, and I had hoped to carry the belief with me to my grave.

…and I wondered, not for the first time, if some of life’s tragedy arose when people put themselves in situations they were not by nature suited for.

…Mr. Hardie had little patience with that sort of conversation.”Ye’re born, ye suffer, and ye die. What made ye think ye deserved different?” he wondered aloud when the deacon’s gentle answers failed to quiet them.

I wondered if all a person could hope for was illusion and luck, for I was forced to conclude that the world was fundamentally and appallingly dangerous. It is a lesson I will never forget.

When we are babies…we need an authoritative figure to guide and take care of us. We ask no questions about that authority and imagine that the small circumference of family life is the limit of...

I have lost patience with the idea of an insignificant human being standing up above the rest of us–whether he is called Reverend or Doctor or Judge–and shouting at us all about this thing or...