The Healthy Management of Reality - Stanford University

years. As I trace back my thinking on religion, I believe that it kept on expandingto encompass more and more possibilities. Interestingly, I believe the core valuesthat attracted me to a religious life in the first place were at work in thismetamorphosis. As I came in contact with more and more people who were notCatholic, it became harder and harder to maintain the belief that they would beconsigned to hell for all eternity. That thought clashed with my understanding ofGod as a being of infinite goodness. So, I began to believe that, as long as one wasChristian, and tried to lead a good life, one could be saved, by the grace of God.But then I became aware of the multitudes of people who are devout believers, butnon-Christian. So, I began to consider the possibility that it was having a religionthat was important, and that as long as one was faithful to one's religious beliefs,one could lead a truly good life. Then, as I entered college, I became familiar withpeople who were openly agnostic or atheists, but whose values appeared to me tobe exemplary. And the need to belong to a specific religion or even to an explicitlyspiritual lifestyle to lead a good life became questionable.As it turned out, this gradual stretching of the concept of a good life or ofbeing a good person has been immensely helpful in my role as a professor and apsychologist. My students and my patients come from a wide variety ofbackgrounds. I am now able to ally myself with those parts of their conception ofgood that I can perceive, and support and strengthen them. I have come to believethat all human beings have a built in tendency to seek that which is good. Not allof us use this tendency well: none of us abide by it perfectly, some of us ignore itmost of the time, and a few actually seem to work against it. But it is never out ofour reach. Thus, the potential to ally with it is always present. The question ishow to actualize that potential.I find Brother Lawrence's metaphor particular helpful. For him, it wasHMOR.July2005.Muñoz.doc 98