Phil Humanna, 16 years old, is 6 feet, blond, tan, handsome and athletic

Libby Christianson, 16 years old, is 5'5", brunette, slim and pretty

Chris Fundamien, 16 years old, is 5'9",  with a cute baby-face

PHIL, LIBBY and CHRIS are riding the Carousel on a beautiful summer day in Como Park, a city park in St. Paul with lakes, gardens, a large greenhouse, a golf course, a zoo, a carousel and rides. They are close friends in high school.

Phil laughs and teases Libby,

Libby, you took my unicorn. I always ride the unicorn. It is my symbol of physical strength. My strength is built from hard work, from the support of friends and family and from recognition of the needs of others for me to be strong. The uniqueness of this mythical creature symbolizes the uniqueness of each person.

Libby shouts back,

Me first. The unicorn is my symbol of spiritual strength. Its mysterious beauty is a reflection of my own preciousness in God's heart.

Chris chimes in,

No, the unicorn is mine. It is the symbol of the Incarnation of God in Jesus and ... well, some other things too.

All three laugh. Libby sits on the unicorn and Chris and Phil stand beside it. They hold on as the carousel goes round and round. The carousel stops. They get off and sit on a bench together.

The Carousel starts up again with the sound system playing "Turn Turn Turn."

Libby

Since we met here a year ago, we have played out this ritual at least ten times. We must come and do this again until we are old and gray some day.

forty-six years later in como park at the carousel

Phil, Libby and Chris, each 62 years old, are riding the Carousel. Libby sits on the unicorn and Chris and Phil stand next to Libby holding onto the unicorn.

After the music and the carousel stops, they get off and walk over to a bench. They sit down on the bench watching the Carousel go round and round without talking, as if gazing into their past and remembering their youth. Eventually, they start talking.

Phil

Seems like yesterday that we rode the Carousel in high school. I am so glad that we found you, Chris. I kept thinking that I would find you again someday. I wondered what happened to you. Then I did a search and found you on Facebook.

Chris

I wondered what happened to you too. Thanks for contacting me.

Phil

Have you heard that Libby and I got married?

Chris

No. Really?! What took you so long? I thought you were headed for the altar in high school. After graduation I lost track of both of you, but I heard that you went your separate ways. Why was that? How did you find each other again?

Libby

The story is as long as our lives, Chris. But I will give you the short version. We both thought of marriage when we were dating in high school. Then Phil became too philosophical and atheistic for me. I wanted more spirituality in my life and for my kids. I married someone else a few years after that. Phil also married a few years later. One day - so many years later - he found me on the Net and emailed me. For over five years we stayed in touch and updated each other on our children and grandchildren and our lives. A year after our spouses both died of cancer, we both flew to New York City for a long date that led to marriage. We had grown to be more mellow and understanding of each other's different viewpoints on life, religion and love.

Chris

Wow! That is quite a story! A love story! I am so happy for you!

Libby

Chris, what have you been doing with your life?

Chris

I got a degree in accounting. For a few years I worked as an accountant for General Mills. I was not too excited about my work or my life until I felt the call to ministry. Then I went to seminary, served churches for some years as a pastor and eventually retired. God helped me through the pain of loss and grief when my wife, Sally, died of cancer. I felt so grateful to God. I wanted to give back something of what God had done for me.

Phil

Wow! You weren't bitter? Angry at God?

Chris

No, just the opposite. I felt like God took her to a better place after all that she had suffered. I wanted to be close to a God who could love her so much. She never seemed bitter about the cancer. She made peace with her lot and welcomed the trip home to live with God. Since she died a few years ago, I have not thrown out things that she collected. It helps me to feel close to her still. I even leave her bathrobe hanging in the bathroom like she will come in any minute and put it on.

Phil

Hmmm. I don't know that I could do that. Instead, I would probably try to put it all behind me and move on. Most people try to move on to reduce the grief. However, it sounds like hanging on gives you comfort. To each his own.

Chris

How did you deal with your wife's death without God?

Phil

In some ways, it has probably been easier for me than for those who are confused or angry when they believe that God is pulling the strings. I did not think that there was a God to blame, so I assumed that people were responsible. Her cancer was due to bad habits - like smoking - and bad habits by her ancestors whose DNA mutated into cancerous tendencies. I have been angry at people from time to time, but I try to accept that there are as many ways of being as there are people. I try to give them room to be themselves, however flawed I might think they are sometimes. Accepting them helps me to accept my own shortcomings and personality quirks as well. I didn't blame God for her death. She did it to herself. Or maybe it just would have happened regardless of what she did.

Chris

But where do you get the personal power for living? I can't imagine living without the power of the Holy Spirit to give me courage and inspiration.

Phil

In some ways you give up a lot of personal power when you look to God for direction and control of things. I look to friends and loved ones for support and encouragement. I look within myself for courage. I feel driven to do my best, driven by my conscience. Sometimes I feel driven by guilt. I am often inspired by others, pushed by adrenaline, nudged by expectation and hope. I get inspiration from the stories of how others have been heroic. I love reading biographies of heroic people with a passion for justice. I meditate for my own inner peace. I do aerobics and strength training to be stronger and more prepared to do my best.

Chris

Interesting. I should do more of those other things too. Usually I just feel lazy and ask for God to do it all. I should work out to become stronger and more physically fit. I have always thought that when your time comes, it comes. However, maybe bad habits are really messing with God's plan and your personal timetable for dying.

Phil

Libby, tell Chris more about your religious journey.

Libby

OK. I became cynical when I encountered many Christians who seemed hypocritical. They talked big about love and compassion, but they were very judgmental. While I continue to believe in many of the things that Jesus taught, I am not so keen on the Jesus-only talk. I believe that Muslims and Jews, Buddhists and Hindus have just as much wisdom as Christians about eternal peace. God is One. When someone says, 'You can come to God only by way of Jesus' I think 'Jesus never would have said that.' I think that people can come to spiritual empowerment in many ways. They should look wherever it can be found. The point is not to choose one graven image and worship it - not even Jesus. The point is to live ethically, to be compassionate, to care for people and to love as well as we can. Jesus would not have wanted people to worship him. It was the early church that made a cult out of Jesus-worship. Christians who talk about Jesus as the only way to come to God are repeating an idolatrous pattern of those who tried to preserve early Christianity by talking that way. Christians who talk this way seem ready to condemn Muslims to eternal damnation. I can't buy that, not at all. The point of Christianity should be to do what Jesus would do, not to worship Jesus and do whatever you please.

Chris

Wow! I would say that we have moved even further apart in our religious views from where we were in high school! I pray many times a day to Jesus, my personal Savior. I can't imagine how anyone can manage without Him. Jesus is my Savior whom I worship. I will pray for you!

Libby

Thanks, Chris. I don't mean to deny the truth of your faith for you. I realize that you do not agree with my Unitarian-Universalist viewpoints. I hope we can agree to disagree and still be friends.

Chris

I won't give up on you. I care for your soul, for you.

Libby smiles and says,

Thanks, Chris. Maybe we had better change the subject. How about those Twins?

Phil jumps in,

On that day in high school when we first met and rode the Carousel and rushed to get to the Unicorn we each gave our different views of the symbolism of the unicorn.

Libby

Yes, I got to the unicorn first. For me the unicorn symbolized strength, mystical spiritual strength. Phil said that it symbolized his personal power. Chris explained how Medieval art depictions of the unicorn symbolized the Incarnation of Jesus and Divine power. He hinted at something else but never quite finished that thought. I always wondered what that was.

Phil

The unicorn is a symbol of personal, physical and emotional strength for me. It comes from within for those who want to care for others, who care to be heroic in their compassion and who want to make the world better for others.

Libby

As a teenager I had several unicorns on the shelf in my room. I gave them power to ward off evil spirits - poisonous things in life.

Chris

Well, that is a bit New-Agey for me.

Phil

And it is a bit too much hocus-pocus for me, but I respect your right to go there, Libby. If it works to make you a better person, it is a good thing for sure. That is my test of a religious practice: does it help you to do the right and good thing?

Chris

Some medieval traditions about hunting the unicorn said that only a virgin could tame the wild beast. Mary, the mother of Jesus, tamed the beastliness of the world with the virgin birth of her baby Jesus. In the Cloisters in New York City, there is a marvelous set of tapestries depicting the hunting of the unicorn. The hunt symbolized the quest for salvation through Jesus.  

Libby

Frankly, I think that religion is only a collection of empowering stories. It would be a mistake to think that they are to be taken literally, to believe that they are pure history. Of course, there is no pure history anyway. History is stories told by the winners. The Bible has lots of stuff that could be used to justify homicide, fratricide, nationalism, racism, sexism and more evil. The Bible has to be filtered by modern ethical standards to find the spiritual wealth within. Christians can be worse than militant Muslims in drawing the most hateful and violent conclusions from their scriptures.

Phil

Preach it, sister! You're talking my language, but I am sure that Chris is squirming here.

Chris

Because you are my friends I will refrain from telling you that you are agents of Satan. However, that very thing has occurred to me as I listen to you talking. I just can't understand how anyone can't see the wonderful things that God has done, the miracles of creation, the blessings of this life, and not believe that it all falls from the hand of God as we speak.

Phil

OK, I do see the miracles. I am filled with awe and wonder at the vastness of the universe, the beauty of people, the miracles of science. However, religion is not necessary to explain that. Religion cannot explain for me why Aids and cancer can destroy millions, why the universe was billions of years old without human life for so long, or why the universe is more vast than imagination can fathom, or why there is probably life in unlimited forms in other worlds, or why the earth and our solar system will cease to exist eventually, or why a meteor collision with the earth  wiped out most of life before and can do it again at any minute. Science tells me that these are just the brutal and often marvelous facts of physics, chemistry and biology. I am extremely grateful for the blessings of this life. However, I do not see that this all requires the kind of God that has been depicted in scripture. I think that we are on our own when it comes to running this show. If it helps some to invent God, then I can handle that - as long as this God does not lead them to reject and hate people not like them.

Chris

You're not suggesting that I do that are you?

Phil

I would hope not, but so many really conservative Christians do. Rejecting others just seems so unchristian to me. I have washed my hands of traditional Christianity because of the byproducts I see: hatred, racism, sexism, elitism and more.

Chris

So, do you have a better option?

Phil

I personally get power from philosophical meditation on a fire or flowing water. Libby gets power from prayer to a Higher Power. However, I don't believe that there is a God who has a plan for my life or the world. I don't believe that there is a God who controls things or talks to people. I don't believe that there is a God who will judge the world or people at some gates of Heaven. When my life ends, that is the end. That is not a tragedy that requires Heaven to redeem it. Death is just a fact - sometimes a very sad fact. But who would want to go on suffering in a body that could no longer sustain the mind? Who would need an afterlife if this life were appreciated for all its miracles and beauty?

Chris

Doesn't that belief depress you? How can you live in a world that does not promise Heaven afterward?

Phil

The world is no less wonderful for me without some eternal reward afterward. In fact, I feel like I am on a unique journey on which I want to make the most of every precious minute for me and my loved ones. I don't want to waste a minute with fear, regrets, anger or hatred. Because there is no door at the end - just a wall, I want to make this room - this lifetime - the best that it can be for me and others. Because there is no forgiveness and making everything right later, I want to do it right this time and make amends now.

Chris

You're losing me here. Tell me more about why this works for you?

Phil

My world without God may be a more ethical place than the kind of world in which very religious people live. Many religious folks sin that grace may abound. They do stuff on Saturday night that they confess on Sunday morning. I'd rather skip that cycle and do the right thing to begin with, do the right thing because it makes my life and the lives of others better right now.

Chris

I'm having a hard time getting my head around this and why you would think this way. In fact, I'm getting a splitting headache. I need to go, but I do want to get together again. How about meeting at Key's Cafe downtown for breakfast a week from now at 8 am?

Libby

Sounds good. We have a condo in Galtier and can walk to Key's from there.

The three stand and hug. Phil and Libby walk hand in hand in one direction toward the Conservatory, and Chris walks toward his car in the parking lot. Chris is shaking his head from side to side in disbelief of the blasphemy and heresy he has just heard from Phil.