“Universalism was born out of the new humanity;
it is the gospel of the new heaven and the new earth.
It throbs with hope. It was part of the great world movement to reinterpret
life in terms of a regenerated, buoyant, self-assertive human nature.”
 – Clarence Skinner (1915)

Gun control legislation failed, the sea is rising, the middle East continues to explode, online you can learn how to make a bomb and now, even a pistol that shoots. We have the highest murder rate in the civilized world, we shoot each other as a way to solve conflict and we still kill people for killing other people. Last week in a meeting, with derision, I was chided for being an optimist: “You believe the world can be a better place don’t you?” 

As a person of faith, how can I believe otherwise?

At that thought, Fox News, the Westboro Baptist Church and others who use their faith as judge and jury, condemning those of us who think differently from them come to mind. 

Why Universalism? Because it “throbs with hope.” What is faith but a belief in something larger than myself, an expansion of ideas or thoughts when I am caught in the smallness of my humanity?

The trees are leafing out, it seemed to happen overnight. The daffodils are up; the azalea bushes are bursting with color. The underneath of the world is greening. I can’t hold onto despair while the birds are chirping, can you?