Hello. A view from the kitchen...floating snowflakes, greening grass and a cat sleeping on a vent.

I'm stimulated! As I sat at the round table this week, I was treated to another religious conversation. Yeah, the usual suspects were there, the atheist, the conservative catholic and a new contestant, the redneck loudmouth cath-aholic. It was great! A central point became, "What is faith?" Is faith and belief the same? Well according to Webster, faith means, "something that is believed especially with strong conviction; belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion; firm belief in something for which there is no proof". So, I guess faith is belief. If we believe something, we have faith in it. My mind is not ready for that this morning.

The atheist likes to hang his hat on the fact that faith is believing in something you can't prove. "How can you believe in something you can't prove?" Boy, that narrows down what we can believe in! The redneck says that his faith has allowed him to, "dig ditches, write estimates, do plumbing...blah, blah, blah,...take care of my family, I don't need nothing from those, f***ers!" HUH! What does that have to do with faith? Another of his arguments was "Dogs don't know they're gonna die." Me thinks this guy has been in the well a little too long.

If we don't have faith what do we have? I have struggled with this question many times and I've always come up empty...hmmm, empty? If believing with strong conviction is faith, I think most of us have faith in something or someone. I feel sorry for those who don't have something they believe in with conviction. What meaning would your life have?

Peace.