Courage Walks Alone

Courage Walks Alone

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

At the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to combat breast cancer

Ten minutes after sunrise, crowds in pink stream in, then shuffle blank faced around the grounds before getting in one of the various long lines to dutifully collect bags of stuff and trinkets and baubles covered with marketing logos of the sponsors.  

From the surrounding neighborhoods people stream in after finding a place to park, most of the pink clad people walking in groups of teams or families, some wearing “survivor” tags, some wearing “in memory of…” tags.  

But an older gentleman walks alone, dignified in his crisp, new, pink-and-white t-shirt.  He arrives alone. He will leave alone, his solitary participation eloquent testimony to the cost of the disease this event seeks to combat.

The droning speaker whom no one hears, the volunteers filling the bags of baubles provided by sponsors, they are all beautiful in their worldly attempt to address a cause of suffering….but it all must ring a bit hollow to the dignified older gentleman in pink and white, who more than festival and frivolous costumes could surely use a hug and that missing familiar hand in his.

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

Science vs religion

Science vs. Religion

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

The beauty of science: it offers a mutually shared faith.

You can see my data and replicate my experiments.

The weakness of religion: you cannot see my god(s), cannot share my ecstatic experience, cannot measure my holy truths.

With science I can give you improved crop yields, transportation, communication, and medical care. 

With my religion I can give you confusing words and obscure names and esoteric creeds, and of course, retribution.

Science will always win the intellectual debate with religion because science’s shared, common, mutually experienced data base is inarguable.  But religion would eliminate even the need for debate if it more effectively shared what it offers as common, verifiable, replicable, mutual experience: love,  hope, healing, forgiveness, and compassion. 

Copyright 2016 Don Ray