Acknowledgments

Along with the many students, professional colleagues, and lay caregivers who have discussed all kinds of questions about faith with me across many years, I want to thank three very special people without whose help this book could not have come to completion. The first is Robert Macy, whose diligent reading of earlier versions of the manuscript, along with the drafts of four of my previous books, have kept my thinking more down to earth and practical than it otherwise might be. Whatever is still lacking in this regard must be attributed solely to my own stubbornness, and not to Bob’s passion for clarity in every sentence.

The second very special person behind these pages is a fellow parishioner, Ms. Chris Guldi, to whom I continue to be grateful for setting up and keeping running my website, www.howeabout.com. Chris and I originally put this site together as part of the outreach ministry of First United Methodist Church, Richardson, Texas. It is still reaching out. More recently, Chris has seen ably to all of the technical details of editing this book both for the website, and for publishing it electronically in two other forms. I admire greatly Chris’ technical competence, and appreciate greatly her caring Christian spirit.

And the third very special person, very, very special, I know Bob and Chris will take no offense in my adding, is my wife—of forty-seven years and counting—Nancy. Our love continues to survive her taking responsibility for getting the final versions of all my book manuscripts to a level of credibility and completeness which I could never achieve all on my own.