In the Fall I plan to begin writing Staring Through the Darkness: Faith and the Fear of Death. While this book is partly a memoir of my journey from nominal catholicism to fundamental Pentecostalism, to a blend of non-dual Christianity and Eastern Theology, it is also a story about my chronic and life-long fear of death. My search for faith has not only been an attempt to assuage my fear of death (with this fear being my sole reason for getting graduate degrees in religious studies and philosophy of religion), ibut also why I saw faith as the simple belief in propositions that would get me to Heaven. That is, I was led down the path of worshipping an idol-God of my own making. My earliest faith was simply a form of ego-driven idolatry fueled by a fear of not existing. In the end that faith, and that ego, had to go through a living death that would enable me to not only reformulate the way I thought of spirituality, but also to begin to see death (both of the ego and the sort that ends our life) as an intricate and vital part of what it means to have faith and to live a life of agape. While the story is told with a certain amount of sadness and tragedy, it is also told with humor and wit. In the end, while the fear of death may not have been extinguished, I have found there is (or may be) a way to reframe the "tragic sense of life" so as to make it a partner that prod's us to get beyond ourself and begin to see everything, God, humanity and nature, as One. A view that has profound ethical consequences for how we live our lives.