This follows from Episode 286, entitled "Sine Qua Non", and concerns the arrival of gratitude and peace at the end of life -- or, better, way before the end of life -- and the birth of faith for one's safe "arrival" after death.

I speak at first about disillusionment with the world, and especially with the world's repetition. "The World Is a Circle" (Burt Bacharach/Hal David, 1973), and come to find out, it really is a circle. Trends rise and fall, and almost always, persistently come back. "Burning" passionate concerns ebb and flow, but almost always re-enter the equation. Generations create and build and re-build, and then it's forgotten. Until, two generations later, the same vision is proffered and embodied, then shaken down, then re-embodied. Then bulldozed!

Where do I turn? "Where Do I Go/ Follow the river... Where is the something?/ Where is the someone/ That tells me why I live and die?" From the broken-down platform of disillusionment, where do I turn?

Podcast 288 moves to the question of hope, really the experience of Christian Hope. It's not a stretch, really. More like a trampoline.

LUV U.