Location

Two, three weeks ago I went for coffee with a student and three of my colleagues. The student had some nagging questions, and the colleagues each approached those doubts with very coherent, erudite explanations and recommended readings. I was out of my depth, so I did a lot of nodding. But on the walk back, I made one contribution to the rap. Last week, the student mentioned in an email that what I said was helpful, so I decided to stick it here in case it helps anyone else. It's a good description, in just a handful of moves, of how I understand faith.

Do your parents love you? Have they included you, protected you, encouraged you, lavished affection on you, because they love you? If the answer isn't yes, then it's time for a nimble detour on this flow chart to address some serious, chronic trauma. But in most cases, the answer is yes.

At my most cynical, I could make the case that your parents had done all those things from purely selfish motives. They did them to fit in, to win acceptance from peers, to appear normal, to satisfy their own parents or spouse, and the list of plausible motives could stretch as long as necessary to make the point. Give me enough time to weave my argument and I could have you believing that they never loved you for one moment, from your birth to now.

Neither explanation would finally dismiss the other. I could raise a lot of doubt in your mind, but I couldn't construct a proof that necessarily excluded the possibility that your parents loved you. Similarly, every heartwarming story you could tell, all put together, could not stop me from my competing narrative that they behaved as they did to please themselves, to use you as a prop in their self-presentation.

You're left in a very Heisenbergian suspension. You either live in a world in which you have loving parents, or in a world in which your parents are cold, calculating, and very convincing liars. You have no real way of settling which world is real.

Pivotal question: in which of the worlds is your life better? Then live in that one. Live as though that's the correct explanation. If, in doing so, you find out that your life is, in fact, better, then you chose wisely. You might not know which explanation is really the correct one, but you were never offered the option of perfect, unquestionable certainty in the first place, so you lose nothing.

Transference of this analogy from your family to your faith is left as an exercise for the student.

Combustion

Elvis took amphetamines to fuel the runaway train of his life. Then, he'd take barbiturates to fall asleep, followed by amphetamines to burn out the barbiturates, followed by barbiturates to dampen the amphetamines. Lather, rinse, repeat. For a while, he was able to work that cycle and look good, but sooner or later the strain etched visible changes on him, and not for the better. And in the end, he died young and left an ugly corpse.

In Texas, business goes buzzing along, enjoying this huge infusion of wealth from the various petrochemical industries. Absurdly high gas prices mean eye-popping earnings, which then sweep through all the contiguous businesses like a flood finding its level in rivers, streams and creeks. And Texans congratulate themselves about how much better their choices have been than those of their compatriots, how recession-proof the state is. But my memory goes back to 1985, when an oil glut dropped gas prices to astonishing lows, and suddenly no enterprise in Texas, from the government on down, had the resources to accomplish anything. And it's perfectly plain that the future of energy in this state, nation, world, is not just more of the same. Very wealthy, well-connected people can put all their power behind calls for more domestic exploration and drilling, but there comes a point where the amphetamines no longer do their job, and my strong suspicion is that the day is closer than most Texans, and all Texan leaders, want to admit to themselves.

The state of Oregon sucked a fiscal teat longer than made any sense, and has been trying to work through withdrawal and come out clean. The progress is inching, and agonizing, but postponing it only would've made it more severe. Texas is riding a binge, and storing up a lot of pain for itself when everything topples.

Part of me thinks this is just a symptom, and the deeply rooted illness comes from a desperate craving for what's uncomplicated. If I were to try to distill Texan-ness down to one idea, that would be it. Some of the iceberg-tips that grow out of that nature are pretty appealing: a bracing assertiveness and a child-like faith. But it's also very Texan to play ostrich, to ignore bad news and hope it goes away, to shoot the messengers and double down on a dumb idea. People who know their Texas history should recognize those tendencies in a million and one turning points that have gone wrong.

I do have a love for the state where I was born, but it's an exasperated love, the love we give a backwards child who sets off one disaster after another, who marches proudly and stubbornly into an endless parade of preventable messes. It's a love almost untouched by admiration or emulation, a lot of combined smiles and eye rolls. And a lot of worrying, shrugging, and fatalism.