The Choice to Care: Faith, Action, and the Good We Leave Behind

I appreciate your honesty. It takes a fair bit of life lived and coffee consumed to get to the place where you can say, “I’ve tried different routes, and I think we’re on our own.” That’s not a small admission, and it carries the weight of experience.

I won’t argue theology with you, because that’s like arguing with a cat about how many hours it should sleep. You’ll get your answer, and the cat will still do as it pleases. People believe what they believe, shaped by where they’ve been, what they’ve seen, and how many times they’ve had to pull themselves out of the muck. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people like to put you in a box. I’ve been labeled a Trump voter more times than I can count simply because of my faith, as if belief and ballots are always tied together. That’s just the way things go now. But the truth is, I don’t even go to church much anymore—too much show, too little substance. But that’s a conversation for another day. Some find comfort in faith, others in pragmatism, and some prefer to go the route of “we’ll see when we see.” All are fair.

But here’s where I land on it: whether there’s someone in the sky pulling strings, or whether we are an entirely independent species floating on a rock spinning 67,000 miles per hour toward an unknown conclusion—it really doesn’t change the work at hand. It reminds me of the story of the Good Samaritan. A man, left beaten and forgotten on the side of the road, was ignored by those who claimed to be the most righteous. But then, a stranger, one from a group considered an outsider, stopped, helped, and showed mercy. The lesson wasn’t about theology, but about action. About kindness. About doing what is right, regardless of whether or not there is a cosmic reward waiting.

If we’re on our own, then it means it’s all up to us. Like the Samaritan, we have the power to choose whether we walk past those who need help or whether we stop and extend a hand. No divine intervention required, just a willingness to care.

You said, “It’s not looking good for us.” And I get that. The world is noisy. People are angry. Things seem more divided than ever. But if I could offer a counterpoint, I’d say this: we’re still here. And as long as we’re still here, we have choices. We can be kind. We can be decent. We can hold doors and say thank you and wave people into traffic. We can make someone laugh when they don’t feel like laughing. We can be the good we’re afraid is disappearing.

If we’re on our own, then it means it’s all up to us. And that should be all the more reason to double down on grace and decency. Whether there’s a grand plan or whether we’re just a cosmic accident figuring things out one day at a time, the job remains the same: keep going, help where you can, and try not to make things worse.

And if, someday, we find out there was someone watching over it all, well—I’d like to think they’d be glad we tried, just as much as we should be glad we kept going, whether or not we ever got an answer.