The previous September, a friend and I spent Rosh Hashanah on the large rocks outside the remains of Sutro Baths. At the end of the 19th century, the Baths had been a large complex of salt water swimming pools. In its heyday, it was impressive enough, that Thomas Edison is purported to have filmed the functioning baths in 1897.

Fifteen hundred years ago, in central Afghanistan, some devout individuals carved out of a sandstone cliff some remarkable sculptures known as the Buddhas of Bamiyan. For 1700 years, these statues stood proudly, over 150 feet tall. In March of 2001, the Taliban dynamited the statues. They were idolatrous, and thus were an intellectual, emotional and spiritual affront to Taliban leaders.

There's a recent book out by mathematician Joseph Mazur entitled Fluke. Mazur purports to explain the statistic probability of improbable events, thus showing how likely the unlikely really is. Mazur's premise came to mind after a week full of encounters with friends old and new.

One of the complaints occasionally levied at the Conservative movement is that it doesn't stand for anything. It is an argument sometimes made of the center in general. Part of that confusion is that the center is always a place of great pluralism.