Once you open that door to a values conversation, it's going to undercut a right-wing economic agenda, which values wealth over work and favors the rich over the poor, or resorts to war as the first resort and not the last.

This year - today - I am repenting of my dependence on fossil fuels.

Faith can cut in so many ways. If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness - that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self criticism aside. There's no reflection.

I don't think we should discriminate against an organization or congregation because they're religious, if they're doing good work. But government can't subsidize proselytizing or worship or religious activity. It can't.

To dig our heels in and say no to a present madness is a good thing, but to walk a new path and say yes is a better thing.

More than just a moral issue, hope is a spiritual and even religious choice. Hope is not a feeling; it is a decision. And the decision for hope is based on what you believe at the deepest levels - what your most basic convictions are about the world and what the future holds - all based on your faith. You choose hope, not as a naive wish, but as a choice, with your eyes wide open to the reality of the world - just like the cynics who have not made the decision for hope.

Our calling is not only to pull people out of the river, but to go upstream to find out what or who is pushing them in.