As I grow older, speaking Truth seems easier.  Yep, I considered what you’re thinking as you read that first sentence... that Truth, unless it begins a sentence, is not capitalized.  That was before.  Now it is... when I’m writing it.  Once I fretted about how my children, my wife, my colleagues, my neighbors, and just about anybody might react if I confessed my honest doubts about all kinds of sacrosanct ideas.  I was an English teacher, and you know what sticklers they are for rules.  When I was thirty or forty or fifty looking forward to the age I am now, a time I would have called “the twilight of my life,” I thought a lot about what I said before I said it.  Now I am inclined to say, or write, what’s on my mind... and let, as they say in the gambling world, the chips fall where they may.  It’s not just rhetorical or grammatical or syntactical issues, like beginning a sentence with and or ending a sentence with a preposition.  And I confess that now I don’t much care where criticism comes from.  And I insist that when I turn seventy-seven in a few weeks, I won’t think of myself as being in the twilight of my life. I will still be reborn (not still-born) every morning when I wake up.  This writing isn’t about hurrying to get "it" out, getting “it” said and done before some mystical curtain falls. What it’s about is boldness... and boldness isn’t the same thing as aggression or combativeness or competition with Whatever holds power.  Maybe fearlessness is the word I want.  

My wife and some close friends may think blogging has made me bolder.  That’s not it at all.  It’s true that a blog releases ideas and dreams and opinions out into the blogosphere where anybody can find them; but looking back on years of journaling before the Internet came along and introduced and defined cyber space, I hesitated to express some of my doubts even in my most private writing... maybe even in my most personal, private thoughts.  I have discovered that doubt is a good thing.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Doubting gravity when I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, a real cliff and not just a rhetorical one, isn’t a good idea.  Doubting Margaret’s love for me would be stupid and would fly in the face of sixty years of experience with her. But although I often talk as if I am absolutely certain when I speak about matters of politics and religion, I doubt; but I am not paralyzed or anxious because of doubt. It is doubt that keeps me pressing forward with questions.  I want to know Truth. I want to speak Truth. I want not to be afraid of Truth.  But I want also not to be afraid to question and to doubt what is held to be true absolutely.