The names roll down the ages like a roll call of the saints - the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy, Mr. Fred Daniels, Mrs. Rosa Parks and Dr. Moses W. Jones - African- American citizens in Montgomery, Alabama, who in 1955 and 1956 courageously led the Black community in a boycott of the Montgomery City Line buses. One name stands out, without whom the boycott would never have happened at all: Rosa Parks.

Recently I read an essay in the New York Times referring to the much discussed sociological category of "nones." That particular essay completely misread recent studies implying that "nones" are non-believers, even agnostics or atheists. I was just about to produce a blog on the subject when my colleague and friend Matthew Myer Boulton, president of Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, posted his excellent blog, which he has given me permission to share with you (below). After reading Matt's blog, I felt it would be largely redundant to write my own. I want to thank Matt for his insightful comments and his willingness to appear as a guest blogger this week on "Thinking Out Loud."

Those who would like, may refer back to the blog I wrote when the Pew Study about the "nones" was originally announced or read the related news stories that followed publication of that blog.

By Tom Bosse

Christian author and lay minister Tom Bosse is the author of the revelation to Trinity’s mystery, “The Unveiling of the Trinity.”

The word Trinity generally conjures up the word mystery or a topic with deep theological concerns designated for someone with a Masters of Divinity. However, the word Trinity is not just an arbitrary term devised by Christians, but represents the handiwork of God reaching out to fallen mankind. As the major Christian doctrine, the Trinity not only incorporates the Godhead, but its real meaning expresses life.

Psychologists have long recognized that for most of us there is a creative "sweet spot," or (perhaps more accurately) a "sweet zone," somewhere on the continuum between a complete lack of stress and disabling distress. Most of us need the variety of inputs life brings, including experiences of dissonance and difficulty and tension, in order to achieve some level of creative output. This "sweet zone," because it is broader than a single point on the continuum, varies from one person to another, obviously; but, for any particular person, it may also vary from one situation and activity to another.

We're still here....

If you are reading this blog, the Mayans were wrong. Or, at least, the Maya interpreters were. The world did not end on December 21.

Apparently the Russians were on the edge of their seats over the whole end of the world, Mayan calendar thing. According to an article in the New York Times on December 1, reports were coming in from all over Russia about aberrant behavior linked closely to the Mayan calendar: "Inmates in a women's prison near the Chinese border" were experiencing "collective mass psychosis," wrote Ellen Barry from her journalistic perch in Moscow. "In a factory town east of Moscow, panicked citizens stripped shelves of matches, kerosene, sugar and candles." and "a huge Mayan-style archway" was being built on Karl Marx Street in the city of Chelyabinsk. I'm really not sure why you'd need any special supplies if the world were about to end - though it is never a bad time to stock up on duct tape!