Attempt

This attempt looks like it might be successful. The snow is not as deep as the prophets of doom suggested. The plow trucks are still circling around in glee although one has gone to tell the king that the snow is falling. I went out yesterday before the snow started and returned just as it was starting. I made pizza again and this time it was good. It took a long time to get the sauce right but it was worth it. I watched the snow fall while drinking cocoa, made from Ghiradelli cocoa that three of the world's most wonderful people gave to me. Friend, I am not up late, I am up early. I find that I wake up about midnight each day. This is probably because I go to bed at five p.m. each evening and continue on my quest to read the entire Story of Civilization series by Will and Ariel Durant. I read the first volume about fifteen years ago and can remember a great deal of it, especially the part about India and the Vedas. I am now on volume eight, the age of Louis XIV. I find it difficult to retain the entirety of what I read now. I have even resorted to rereading. I may be able to finish the series because the Durants are dead and it seemed that they could write faster than I could read. Snow storm outside a warm room, a warm blanket,hot cocoa, a good book to read, does life get any better than this. I gained a new appreciation of Luther. He was pudgy and therefore has my respect." Not by works", that goes along with what I have always felt, as if God needed my help to right the wrongs of the world. "But by faith alone", that is the part that has started the thinking. How does one know that they really have faith? Pascal advised faith based on probabilities, imagine a dead athiest (all dressed up with no place to go) but then realized it was not possible to reason faith. It must just be faith. Augustine of Hippo said the same. Abelard, the long suffering genius agreed with Stevie Wonder "If you believe in things that you don't understand, superstition that's your name." Aristotle, lets leave the Trinity and Socrates and Menon out of this, said "If you understand your god then your god is not a god." These were some of the greatest minds mankind has ever produced. They agree on virtually nothing. All the reading I do seems to agree that in the beginng, if there was one, there was only God. Use the word Logos and you could have become kindling a thousand years ago. O.K., here I go. In the beginning everything was condensed into something smaller than an atom. Then BANG. Hydrogen, space, and time were formed. Hydrogen became stars, which grew older and exploded, forming new elements and new stars. These stars went through the same process. Eventually the leftover elements coalesced and formed planets. Primordial Soup led to people. O.K., go back. In the beginning there was just God. It seems to me that the only source of everything else has to be the only available resource. We are star stuff because the elements that compose us were made in stars. Stars were made from God. Do the math. We live in a habitable zone. Any time the Sun acts up, the Earth compensates. Coincidence? All of the early religions seem to have the same basic concepts which were handed down orally. Words. Now all of the religions have separated into infinitesimal differences. These differences were all written down in Sacred Books. How do you get other people to read what you have written? You have to write something new or different, words. To me, the problem seems to be words, not Words. Kind of brings me back to Pascal. How can I ever be sure that I truly have faith and am not just playing the odds? Only I can know this and I am not sure. Reason, like Twinkies, is awfully tempting and just about as good for you. See what happens when you are up late at night and have had four cups of deliciously strong coffee?