As I mentioned in the previous post, Bill sent a letter along withthe book. Just a little background for some of you: Bill has been a believer for as long as I've known him. And I've not been for as long as he's known me. We've spent untold hours discussing matters of ethics, morality, religion, music, politics, and tOSU atheletics. As many friendships are built upon shared experiences, ours is built upon a deep understanding of one another stemming from our thousands of conversations with one another. We have gone years without talking, and picked up right where we left off. I could not see or talk to him for 50 years, and we would still know one another as well as anyone else did.
So here's the letter that accompanied the book:
Dan,
I hope you find this book to be an interesting read. Fromt he first time that I read it a few years ago, I thought of you as someone that might appreciate it. I thought of you not only because you are someone who demands that faith and belief make sense and have support in this world, but because you are someone who, even more than some clergy I have known in my life, have passionatly looked for truth and worth in everything.
I know that in your lifetime you have seen the difference that faith and Christ can make in people's lives, and in the world. You have been patient and honest to yourself and to God in realizing that the faith of others isn't enough, that it can't give us faith or a relationship to Christ. You are right about this.
I want you to read this book not only as someone who stands on the "edges of faith," familiar with it but not connected to it, but also as someone with very serious, very real questions and doubts - questions that are worth exploring and that deserve answers in as much as they can be given.
In the composie "seeeker" that this book presents, there are questions that I am sure you have had. I hope that this book gives you some new ways of understanding some of those questions, or new ways of asking. I'm giving you this book not to give you faith, because no book or thing and "give" that to you. I want you to have it to give you more understanding and appreciation for the faith that I pitifully attempt to proclaim in my work and the faith in which Trevor and Kristi have been baptized.
Most sincerely,
Bill
Now, Bill is the only person aside from my wife that I wouldn't get defensive with when this topic is broached. So I will read this book, honestly and with an open mind. I think I know quite a bit about the Faith. More than most christians I come across. But maybe I'll learn something. At the very least, I'll get use some of those synaptic pathways that I so rarely travel these days.