I want to save the world. I have always wanted to. I feel it’s the natural state of every human being to want to save the world. But then, I know I’m weird.
I was raised Jewish and learned early that made me one of the Chosen People. More accurately, I was one of God’s Chosen People. And as a boy, growing up and imagining, I believed that God had chosen me, singled me out, even among the Chosen people, to do His work.
I’ve long since lost the faith in God that I had as a kid—and perhaps God has lost faith in me, as well. I no longer believe in God, but I wish that I did. But I’ve now discovered a God that I can believe in.
A couple of days ago I came upon Supply Side Liberal the blog of a guy named Miles Kimball. I was going to say “a blog by economist Miles Kimball,” but to imply that he's well-enough described by saying he's an economist is to do him an injustice. He is an economist by profession, but he’s a lot more than that. He’s a prolific writer and a wide-ranging thinker. He’s a post-a-day blogger, something I’ve aspired to since I started this blog, and he’s inspired me to achieve that goal. He’s written extensively about diet—and inspired me to try fasting. (I’ve dropped at least three pounds in less than a week, thank you, Miles). He’s inspired me to reconsider my objective: to save the world. Or at least to change it. I learned that he’s a former Mormon and now a Unitarian-Universalist lay preacher. And in one of his sermons he’s he’s suggested a different view of God. One that I can believe in and work for.
I’ve read so many interesting posts over the last few days that I could meet my post-a-day objective just by grabbing one of Miles’ each day and doing my own riff. And since he’s five years ahead of me I’ll never run out of content. So I’ve got a fallback strategy if I can’t think of anything on my own.
I’ll write about Miles’ vision of God in the next post and I’ll conclude this one with something lighter-weight. Under the heading “Humor” I found this in a post about Louis Brandeis, who achieved fame as a Supreme Court justice. This part made me Chuckle Out Loud (not quite an LOL, but close)
Peters (an anti-semitic professor at Harvard)…asked him the following question: “Mr Brandeis, if you were walking down the street and found a package, a bag of wisdom and another bag with a lot of money, which one would you take?” Without hesitating, Brandeis responded, “The one with the money, of course.” Peters, smiling sarcastically, said, “Just like a Jew. Unlike you I would have taken the wisdom.” Brandeis shrugged indifferently and responded, “Each one takes what he doesn’t have.”
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