What do I hope? I hope that God is a rational being. I hope that there is an after life where he and I can sit down over a couple of Heavenly Homebrews and discuss all the things I’ve learned, my successes and failures, joys and disappointments. I hope that there is something beyond the century or less that I’m going to live here—somewhere else I can go and learn new things, to continue to grow, to strive, to become more than I am today. I hope that God is not an all-powerful, perfect, all-seeing, all-knowing being, because such a being would be as bored as my former boss who spent his days playing Minesweeper and Solitaire, and even more boring to talk to. I hope that God, too, is a fallible being who continues to grow and from whom I can learn lessons of love and loss, success and failure. To believe that my life, my hopes, and desires are nothing more than the result of billions of years of random accidents and some simple chemical reactions is among the most depressing thoughts imaginable. I want to believe that my life means something beyond whatever small mark I make in this world and on the minds and hearts of the people I’ve known.