Two weeks ago, I talked about sustainability, the first of three reflections on that subject. As I was considering what sustains me in this journey through life, I realized — with a “Duh!” — that religion might maybe sustain me. Notice the hedging! I was not prepared to say, without qualification, that religion sustains me. After all, I think of myself as being a staunch humanist! Then, again, I am a minister. Shouldn’t religion be something that sustains me? That led me to a book titled Why Religion? that I had been intending to read for some time. The author, Elaine Pagels, wrestles with her conflicted thoughts about religion and why it is still a factor in human life well into the twenty-first century. Should we Unitarian Universalists be paying more attention to what religion is, while defining it within the framework of our stories and experiences? Are we even capable of looking at the word religion more objectively than we have in the past? Does religion comfort us or challenge us or basically just confuse us — or all of the above? Join me this week to contemplate what the place of religion might be in today’s world.