Today I am not going to go with Auntie and Brigitte to the Klupmans’ for tea. I begged Auntie if I could stay by the fire and read in her bedroom. Her room is on the second floor and has an enormous window that faces the mountains. I will be alone all afternoon with just my book, the fire, and the mountains.

This is what I came to Switzerland for! Of course Brigitte thinks I am positively a child, but I don’t care.

Sabina

Dear Sabina,

Yes, we are back in Berlin. Listening to you describe Switzerland, even with all you have to put up with, makes the city seem all the more dreary.

Do you mind if I ask you another question? I’ve found myself still thinking about this since your letter a while back.

I am doing a lot of thinking about spiritual things, even though I haven’t been writing as much as I should. I’ve taken your father’s advice too and have been reading the Gospels in the New Testament, trying to keep moving down the “discovery” path as he calls it, to find out what God is like. I am learning so many things I didn’t know before. Reading the Bible from the perspective of Jesus telling us about a loving Father, and learning to quit thinking about God as a mean ogre—it changes everything about what the words of Jesus mean. I’m enjoying it!

I have found another question coming to me though. Isn’t one of the main reasons you believe as you do because of your parents, and because they have taught you things about being a Christian? What difference does it make what people believe if they try to live a good life? I’m not asking this in disagreement or anything. It’s just that I found myself wondering about it.

Matthew

Lieber Matthew!

If you pray, Matthew, please pray for my father. I know he’s worried and is asking for the Lord to show him what to do.

This may be short, but I want to say just a few words about the question you asked me in your last letter.

If living a good life was all there was to it, I suppose you would be right, but it isn’t. I believe there is such a thing as truth, and so it matters on just the level of falling in with what’s true. Whether my parents taught me one thing and somebody else was raised another way, and somebody else another way—none of that changes what is true. So it seems to me the first and most important thing about life ought to be discovering what’s true.