Now, at 68, I find some parallels to Luther’s early story in my own spiritual journey. I too found in the ‘50’s that the Catholic rituals gone berserk only intensified my sense of my sinfulness. Then, in high school in 1958, I heard a radical idea from the nuns: if you truly believed– sincerely! –in your heart that God wanted you to do something considered “sinful” (miss mass?) that your soul would be pure! My friends were abuzz with this kind of indecipherable koan. What else could you do? Rob a bank? Spread a rumor? Disobey your parents? It was a delectable puzzle, not the norm for the time.

In my late 30’s, I found in sorrowful circumstances that release in “faith alone” set me on a new course of comfort and growth. As a spiritual pragmatist, I found that acting on even minute inspiration and accepting the outcome, with an effort to stay open minded, brought me reliable peace, purpose and joy. It still does. My inbred sense of childhood guilt, which occasionally erupts when my defenses are low, can be released by living in the now.

This may all be goofy, but it floats my boat. I identify it as subjective rather than wrong! I correlate the still ethically challenged Catholic hierarchy as a kind of religious 1%. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (Lord Acton, 1887) Granted, local churches may indeed still inspire by ignoring Rome. My friend tells me that her Lutheran church still rivals anything I have told her about my experience with Catholicism, underscoring your point about the failings of the reformation. But indeed, all of this religious turmoil and oppression cannot have had little effect on the creation of our amazing American experiment with democracy, religious and otherwise. What sorrow would be in store for those who want to repeat those terrible centuries, before and after the Reformation! I refer to the onslaught in the first decade of the 21st Century on women’s hard won rights. It keeps my eye on our politicians.

Thank you for provoking thought for me with this study of Luther.