One big temptation for religious types when it comes to “Evolution,” is the belief that soul/spirit/the spiritual is also evolving (meaning, automatically becoming better and even transforming into some great unknown). I never bought this, even as a kid.

As we come to trust God, suffering doesn’t go away but is changed. There’s no place it can go where joy cannot reach, but there’s a place joy can go where suffering cannot reach. That’s called love.

“For the smallest and most vulnerable people in our midst, a culture that despises dependence will endanger their lives,” writes Leah Libresco Sargeant in her forthcoming book, The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto.