The Song is Wrong: They Don’t Know Us by Our Love

I recently saw a “New Yorker” cartoon that depicted God speaking to a frowning angel as they gazed down at planet Earth. The caption read: “I’m starting to prefer the ones who don’t believe in me.” I laughed when I read that, but it also hit a nerve.

Last summer I struck up a conversation with a middle-aged woman on a flight from Denver to San Francisco. We engaged in the kind of small talk two strangers sitting side-by-side on a three-hour flight do. She told me she was headed out to vis...