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VOL. 54 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 22, 2017 P129 faith. I even read the Bible in high school to see what I was missing. Then I read it again to gather ammunition against peo- ple who wanted to use it against me. I was an "angry atheist." The anger wore down over time, and 10 years ago, my father, Dennis, was diagnosed with a rare, deadly cancer due to his exposure to Agent Or- ange while he served in the US Marine Corps in Vietnam, and I started to envy people of faith. Facing the death of a loved one (which makes your own mortality more of a pressing issue as well) is probably much harder for an atheist than for someone who believes they'll see their loved one again someday. Trey lost his father, Roy, when he was 12 in a tragic trac- tor accident. Roy was moving rocks down into a stream from Trey's practice track when his tractor rolled over on him. He understands the loss, and we've helped each other along these lines the best we could. Trey has helped me through this stuff more than probably anyone else in my life. Over the years, Trey and I have had long conversations about his faith, as well as my lack thereof. He has helped me understand so much more than what I would've been able to figure out on my own, and I be- lieve I've helped him understand the objections of non-believers as well. Trey's faith asks him to proselytize and bring people to the Lord, so I'd like to believe his knowledge of the objections of non-believers will help him do that. In my life, most people of faith I've encountered believe atheists are evil or bad people, so there's not much dialog to be had there. Through our conversations, Trey never made me feel judged or pressured. I never felt any- thing from him but love and a desire to understand. And this is despite the fact that some of the things I asked about and explained tended to cut right to the very core of his faith. It didn't bother him. That's the thing about true faith; it's resilient. Trey is resilient. I've worried a lot about Trey over the years. I've worried about his love life (worries which disappeared the first time I met his lovely wife, Hannah), about his health, and even worried that he may be sort of "racing a ghost" by putting too much pres- sure on himself to perform in order to make his father proud. But I never worried about Trey as a person. At all. He's a good person. Probably largely be- cause he tries really hard to be. All the time. Most of us are good people. That's what I believe. I believe we're overwhelmingly good peo- ple. I think most people are kind. But a lot of us don't have the pa- tience, or the inner security, to be able to confront things about each other, and about ourselves, without anger or judgment. That's what we all need to work on. Look around at the news. Look at all the hatred and vitriol from people who believe the "other side" is "bad" or "evil." They aren't. They're overwhelm- ingly good people on all "sides." Prejudice against anybody—any- body—is wrong. And again, I'm talking about all "sides." If we want to make this world of ours a better place, we need to learn to take the time and dis- cuss things with the very people we disagree with, rationally, without judgment, without anger, without resentment and without assuming the other person is "bad" because they see things differently than we do. Igno- rance can only be cured through education, education can only be achieved through communi- cation, and communication can only be had when all sides of the conversation are open to hear- ing the others. In some other dimension, on some other version of our plan- et, Trey Canard and I wouldn't be "friends" and might actually find enemies in one another—espe- cially if that's what we were both looking for. But I love Trey Canard. And love is the answer. Enjoy retire- ment, Trey. CN