Handmaiden..........................

     And thus I doubt.  Doubt to me is the handmaiden to faith, its cop, the one that keeps faith straight.  To doubt is an indication of freedom and a guard against fanaticism.  But it is also so easy to doubt, so easy to be cynical, that the job appears to be to enlarge the part that believes, but only to enlarge it by taking a path made painful by doubt and with the integrity born of the doubt rather than the inflation born of sentiment, heightened emotion, or the sometimes false camaraderie of a faith community.

-Nora Gallagher,  Things Seen And Unseen:  A Year Lived in Faith