Forty-three years ago, I read something by Sherwood Anderson in an upper-level literature class at Albion College. Which took me a while to find, given that I wanted to see if it was as I remembered it. But I did. And it was.

Anderson shared a legend, suggesting that in the beginning there was a valley filled with truths. And the truths were all beautiful. There were truths about every subject under the sun. There were truths about virginity and truths about passion....truths about wealth and truths about poverty....truths about thrift and truths about profligacy....truths about carefulness and truths about abandon. There were hundreds and hundreds of truths, all of them beautiful.

And then the people came along, pouring into the valley. Each snatched up one of the truths. And the strong, several. But in trying to protect their truth from others, they squeezed it until it became misshapen....deformed....even grotesque. Until the person holding it became grotesque. Which happens in my business all the time. And which is why I hold the truths I love in humble hands. For short of eternity, there is little I can claim with absolute certainty. I suppose if you persist in a belief that out there is to be found "the one true church," all I can tell you is where you cannot find it....that being the church that claims (to the point of bragging) that they have it. Whatever you do, don't go there.