On various occasions, on this show, we've discussed matters of right and wrong. And we've found a lot of issues we could argue about, such as about what is right and what is wrong, and about whether and how we can know the answers to questions about morality. Today I want to do something different. Let's talk about right and wrong. But instead of getting into the subject through argument, let's each talk about our own experience. Instead of defending our positions, let's try to understand how life has shaped our feelings and beliefs. Here's my invitation to you. Try to remember whatever experience you have had that had an important impact on your sense of right and wrong, or on your whole relationship to morality. If you think of something that feels important to you, please call in and share it. Maybe there was some situation where you learned the real meaning of right and wrong. Maybe there was something you thought was OK, but then you saw that it was really wrong: maybe it was your being on the receiving end of some action that opened your eyes; or perhaps you saw more clearly the consequences of your own actions and your moral feelings changed. Or maybe there was something you thought was wrong, but your experience led you to conclude that your previous judgment needed changing. Have you ever done something you believe was right, but then found yourself troubled because it felt very wrong to do? Do you remember any indelible experience that confirmed your beliefs about the rightness or wrongness of something, that took some superficial belief of yours and inscribed it more deeply in your soul? Did some experience in your life ever lead you to come up with an understanding of morality different from what you were taught when you were growing up? Think about the way in which you were taught about right and wrong. Do you recall any experience in your moral upbringing that really worked well for you, that brought the truth of that teaching into your heart? Or, on the other hand, was there anything in your experience of being taught right and wrong that really didn't work for you, that didn't make sense, or that turned you away from that teaching? Sometimes some pivotal experience turns people's life's around, in ways happy or unhappy. Has anything like that happened in your life in relation to questions of morality? Did some event give you a new determination to follow more closely your beliefs about what is right? Or did you ever suffer from some experience that so disillusioned you that you gave less heed to your moral beliefs? Or do you recall an experience that, in some other way, shifted your relationship with your moral beliefs? My invitation this morning is for you to share your formative experiences around questions of right and wrong. I'd like for you to feel it is safe to do so. It is not my intention to quarrel with you about your feelings or your beliefs. I think there is a value in simply understanding, in a respectful and compassionate way, what we each have experienced in trying to live our lives as human beings. It is my hope that the better we understand how each of us has come to be where we are on some of life's big questions, the better able we will be to explore those questions together in a constructive and healing way. So I hope that --if you have an experience to describe, whether it is one that makes you feel happy or sorrowful, whether you are proud of it or uncomfortable-- you will feel free to call and tell us about it.