Here’s something to get the wheels turning.

Take a gander at this provocative post by Rod Dreher, pondering these words by Saul Alinsky, a radical who had a profound effect on Barack Obama:

Each year, for a number of years, the activists in the graduating class from a major Catholic seminary near Chicago would visit me for a day just before their ordination, with questions about values, revolutionary tactics, and such. Once, at the end of such a day, one of the seminarians said, “Mr. Alinsky, before we came here we met and agreed that there was one question we particularly wanted to put to you. We’re going to be ordained, and then we’ll be assigned to different parishes, as assistants to — frankly — stuffy, reactionary old pastors. They will disapprove of a lot of what you and we believe in, and we will be put into a killing routine. Our question is: how do we keep our faith in true Christian values, everything we hope to do to change the system?”

That was easy, I answered. “When you go out that door, just make your own personal decision about whether you want to be a bishop or a priest, and everything else will follow.”

I have to say, even considering the source, those words say something for all of us, no matter what your vocation or station in life.