Yet, even so–if we look, if we listen, if we are willing to be fair, if we are willing to be humble…
We can find men and women who have walked among us for all of human history, saying something, working for something, standing for something.
And, in the process, standing for Someone.
They are fallible; they are sinners, too; their communication isn’t perfect; their understanding isn’t perfect.
But they are there–showing us there is some Way, better than the ways around them, perhaps better than the ways we ourselves know.
These men and women are the sheep of the Shepherd.
They are the saints.
For the vast majority of human history, they have also been what is commonly called ‘pagan’; although they haven’t always been what ‘pagan’ originally meant: peasants.
And though they have worked within the understandings of their time, sometimes against the understandings of their time, and not always in tune with the answers I myself have inferred–still, often there are hints, in what they do, in who they are, in what they stand for.
There is, after all, a universal religion.
The ‘catholic’ religion.
Except it is very hard to see, and very hard to hear. It requires discernment to embrace logic; and humility to embrace both myth and history; and a willingness to distinguish good from evil, and truth from falsehood.
And even then with the best of intentions–we still aren’t likely to get much of it right.