in my melancholic friendship

I have a few friends who are religious, that is, who take their commitment to their religious teachings seriously. One is studying for lay ministry. In response to the entrance committee’s question about when she “heard her calling,” she said that she didn’t “hear a calling,” but that when she asked her god what she should do, the answer was always “Help,” and she did: the hungry, the dying. One friend told me he strived “to be the face and hands of Jesus in the world.” He assists immigrants, the elderly. I find their commitment profound. More profound than my vague intention to be kind, or kind-ish, to be a good person, or good-ish. I think about the men of my friend’s synagogue, who would volunteer on Christmas for the dispatchers at the fire station, police station, emergency services, whatever they could do as civilians so the Christmas-celebrators there could have an evening with their families. It interests me, this level of taking seriously the best teachings of deism, which,…