Tattoo

"I didn't know you were religious..."

"Because I'm not."

(puzzled look)

"It's not about having faith, but believing there's something out there worth having faith in.  It's about seeking something that you may never find, but looking anyway, because that's what you have to do.  This is a talisman for a life's journey-- a symbol to remind me each morning to go out there and find what I didn't find yesterday.  And if I don't find it today, it'll remind me to look again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.  And if I spend the rest of my life seeking that fleeting item in which to lay my faith, so be it.  Life is in the seeking-- not the finding."

"Well, it looks really cool."

"Yeah.  I know."

A few days ago I walked down to Jackson Square and stood in front of the St. Louis Cathedral, that massive monument to God and order in the center of America's most Catholic and crazy city.  I looked at the church for a moment, and then strode away.  From down Chartres I turned to look back at the steeples rising into the night.  In a few days, I leave New Orleans, and I don't know if I'll ever see that building again.

"Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?"

"It reminds me a lot of that, as well..."