June Jordan, a Caribbean American poet, once wrote that "In addition to the traditional concept of true commitment that means you are willing to die for what you think is right, make equal space for the womanly concept of commitment that means you are willing to live for what you believe."

In a world where too many seem all too willing to die or kill for what they believe, for good or ill; where fanaticism and absolutism too often thrive and where freedom and reason and compassion are too often trampled; it behooves us to consider what it might mean to "live" for one's faith.

What I am suggesting is that it may be more important to live than to die for what we believe.

Perhaps, after all, it is easier to die for what one believes than to live for it: to live and to do the hard work of reconciliation and peacemaking, of building bridges to understanding, that our troubled world so desperately needs.

What is needed in this world are not more martyrs to whatever "true" faith, not more suicide bombers or assassins, not more unbending believers or super-patriots, but the hard work and commitment of regular folks who are willing to keep living for what they believe is right.

These are the people who most often must endure persecution and hatred and oppression and misunderstanding and worse, but who refuse to succumb to anger and bloodshed, who seek the path of greater understanding; they are the "blessed peacemakers" who seek to live in peace and harmony with their neighbors, to raise their children to be kind and loving and to work for the improvement of their own and other lives and of the world of which they are a part.

As the wise, ancient author of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes wrote, "I know that there is nothing good for anyone except to be happy and live the best life he can while he is alive." Would that more religious people around the world would embrace such an ethic.

I want to be part of a faith that lives for what it believes, a faith that asks people to live the best lives of which they are capable and that works to make the world a better place for all who inhabit it.

May we remember always the choice which Moses put before the people of ancient Israel: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendents may live."

May we always be people who first of all choose life, and who choose first of all to live rather than to die for our beliefs. The world desperately needs such living people and such a living faith.

¢¢¢

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock is pastor of the First Religious Society in Newburyport, Unitarian Universalist.