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« On Receiving Harsh Criticism | Main | Picking Up The Tab »

June 24, 2009

In Gene We Trust

1018963718_85c5050c8dWhat can we believe?

Seeing is believing.

But can we believe only what we can see?

If so, can I believe in my wife's love for me? It's not observable in clinical trials. (You certainly wouldn't want to watch.)

Some things require faith. Or blissful disregard, I guess. Like the sun will come up tomorrow. I believe that. Or I blissfully disregard it.

Believe You Me
Good ol' Gene Logsdon — a farmer who's not satisfied to merely be organic, he also feels obliged to blog about it — also writes true stories that he passes off as fiction.

Long-time readers of Net Cotton Content (and now there are hundreds, go figure) remember that Gene and I have already exchanged words.

A more recent email exchange tickled my fancy. Words about belief are bold for your ease:

Gene:
"You will find this very hard to believe (I find it very hard to believe) but once (once) (only once) in college, seminary college to boot, I starred in Wilder's Skin of Your Teeth. Just finished another novel making fun of religion. Sorry."

Artie:
"I find myself at a time in my life where it is no longer hard to believe anything. I now believe nearly everything, even when they are contradictory. Put that in your Smith-Corona and schmoke it!"

Gene:
"It certainly is far better to believe in everything than to believe in nothing."

I keep wishing that I had written the last line. I think that believing in nothing is a grim existence.

Gene This might not be as witty as your conversation at home, but Gene liked it so much, he put it in the dialogue between the main characters of a novel that he's just finished. Pope Mary and the Church of Almighty Good Food (working title) is "a gently humorous examination of both the idiocies and brilliances of Catholicism and it is very very much on the theme of what people believe or don't believe about religion."

Gene adds: "So I thank you 'until you are better paid' as the old farmer I once worked for liked to say. He never did get around to better paying me." (Warning to Gene: If my line is spoken by a braying ass, I'm retaining attorney Doug Morgan.)

"It certainly is far better to believe in everything than to believe in nothing." Given that stark choice, which one would you choose?

in Lessons from Young Isaac clients and other teachers, Living an engaged life, On Ethics |

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