If people ask whether I’m religious, and, if so, what is my religion, I find it very difficult to answer. People rarely ask such a question directly, but it arises in indirect ways, and, in all these years, I have yet to come up with a graceful way of articulating my perspective. If I say, “Yes, I’m religious,” I risk being very misleading, given what religion so often is in our culture. If I say something like, “Yes, but not in the conventional way,” I just mystify people. Any attempt to explain what I mean instantly becomes some kind of overly complicated lecture inappropriate to a social occasion. A newsletter is a social occasion, but of a different kind, and I hope I may make a less awkward attempt at an answer here.