New Year’s Eve. Halfway through the reunion dinner, mother started again.

“You know, sister from the temple said that lighting prayer lamps this year is especially efficacious…”

“Good deeds bring good karma. Look at Mrs. Wang next door—she donated 200,000 NT to the temple, and then her son got into National Taiwan University…”

“Walking up the sacred mountain helps a lot. My knees stopped hurting after my last pilgrimage…”

Before I could react, my homeschooled son had already set up his logical artillery.

“Grandma, if merit can be accumulated, then if I move a stone to the roadside that’s accumulating merit, but if I move it back and forth repeatedly, can I infinitely farm merit points?”

“If lighting lamps works, why don’t all the people who light lamps become rich? What about those who are wealthy but never lit lamps?”

“Where’s the causal relationship between donation and getting into NTU? Is there a control group?”

Mother’s expression shifted from pleasant to embarrassed, finally settling into a wounded silence. “Ah—I won’t talk to you about this anymore.”

My son looked at me triumphantly, expecting me to stand on the side of reason.

But in that moment, I couldn’t smile.

Red Envelopes Still Given, Logic Still Broken

The red envelopes were still handed out. In the envelope grandma stuffed into her grandson’s hands, there was probably quite a bit of “merit dedication” tucked away with good intentions. The grandson took the red envelope and continued his logical deduction.

Between grandmother and grandson, there was destined to be no logical common ground.

But the red envelope was still given, still received. Because family bonds remain, love remains. Blood relations are a connection that transcends reason—you don’t need to agree with someone’s worldview to love them.

Watching this scene, I suddenly realized something: every one of my son’s rebuttals was correct. Logically, merit cannot be accumulated, lamp-lighting cannot change fate, cause and effect cannot be attributed so simply. But what good does being “right” do?

So what if you’re right? You win a debate and lose an elderly person’s heart.

The Structure of Merit Economics

Let me analyze the structure of my mother’s faith without emotion.

She believes in what I call a “merit economics” system. In this system, good deeds are currency that can be deposited into an invisible account (the merit ledger). Save enough, and you can exchange it for good luck, health, and children’s achievements. Temples and religious organizations are banks, providing various deposit methods: lighting lamps, donations, pilgrimages, chanting sutras.

This system is logically riddled with holes. But psychologically, it provides three extremely scarce things: a sense of control, a sense of meaning, and a sense of belonging.

Sense of control: I do something, and something good will happen. In a world full of uncertainty, this sense of causal certainty is a luxury.

Sense of meaning: My daily actions (donations, prayers, pilgrimages) aren’t just routine—they’re accumulating blessings for myself and my family. Every small action has cosmic significance.

Sense of belonging: The temple sisters go on pilgrimages together, attend ceremonies together, share testimonies together. In the years when children are busy with their own lives, this community provides more stable companionship than family.

Once you understand these three things, you understand why rational rebuttals don’t work. Because you’re not refuting a proposition—you’re pulling away the support that keeps a person going.

After Father Left

My father’s passing wasn’t exactly sudden, but for mother, every loss is sudden.

When father was alive, mother’s world had a very clear center. He was the decision-maker, the reason to go out, the definer of daily rhythm. Mother wasn’t without her own identity—she was intelligent, capable, kept the house in perfect order. But her identity revolved around father, like a satellite orbiting a planet.

When the planet disappears, the satellite loses its orbit.

The period after father left is hard to describe simply as “grief.” Grief has direction—you know what you’re crying about. But mother’s state was more like weightlessness. She didn’t know what to do tomorrow, didn’t know why the day should begin, didn’t know what role she still had in this world.

It was during that time that the religious community caught her.

The temple sisters took her to the Buddhist hall every week, took her to volunteer, took her on pilgrimages. I don’t agree with the theological content of these activities, but they accomplished something I couldn’t: they gave mother a reason to get out of bed every day.

Do you know what an elderly person who has lost their center needs most? Not principles, not analysis, not “you need to think positively” chicken soup. It’s a fixed daily schedule, a group of people who will call to check on her, and a belief system that makes her feel what she’s doing has meaning.

Whether it’s “true” or not doesn’t matter.

The Broken Crutch

This is the core of what I want to say: Don’t rush to break a broken crutch if it still works.

I have theological training. I’m more capable than most people of deconstructing my mother’s faith—merit economics doesn’t hold up theologically, merit accumulation has problems in both Christian and Buddhist orthodox theology, and the simple version of karmic retribution can’t withstand any serious ethical examination.

But theological training also taught me something else: Truth isn’t just the correctness of propositions, but also how they function in concrete lives.

For mother, these beliefs aren’t propositions that need verification. They’re a crutch. A crutch that may be crooked, may be cracked, may be rotten from a purely theological perspective. But it supports mother every day to get up from bed, walk out the door, chat and laugh with a group of people, then return home with a bit of feeling that “I did something meaningful today.”

Do you want me to use reason to break this crutch?

And then what? Do I have something better to give her?

I discussed in “The Collapse and Reconstruction of Faith” that faith lacking reflection is fragile. But that was aimed at faith communities with influence in the public sphere. For a mother facing old age alone, demanding that her faith withstand academic scrutiny isn’t rigor—it’s cruelty.

The Limitations of Reason Aren’t Reason’s Failure

I must be clear here: I’m not opposing reason.

Every logical rebuttal my son made was correct, and I don’t plan to teach him to abandon critical thinking. Quite the opposite—critical thinking is one of the educational investments I consider most important.

But reason has its scope of application. A screwdriver is a good tool, but you can’t use it to comb your hair.

Reason is suitable for handling propositions: “Can merit be accumulated?” can be analyzed. “Can lamp-lighting change fortune?” can be verified. “Is there a causal relationship between donations and exam results?” can be experimentally tested.

But reason isn’t suitable for handling existence: “How should a 70-year-old who has lost their spouse find a reason to live?” This isn’t a problem that can be “solved.” It’s a situation that needs to be accompanied.

Humility, in this context, isn’t admitting you might be wrong. It’s admitting that even if you get everything right, you might not be able to help the person who needs help.

Those Charging Forward, Remember to Look Back

Sometimes I wonder, what sustains those of us who are out there “moving the world forward”?

Is it reason? Is it professional capability? Is it vision for the future?

Maybe all of these. But at a deeper level, there’s a fact we’re reluctant to admit: someone is supporting us from behind. It’s those forces we don’t necessarily agree with, even find somewhat absurd—mother’s prayers, parents’ worries, elderly people’s nagging reminders—that in places we can’t see, in ways we don’t understand, support the stability of the entire system.

Without these “broken crutches” accompanying elderly family members as they trudge forward alone, providing them with sustenance, we young people who think we’re charging ahead would probably lose much of our strength to advance.

Because when you’re fighting hard on the front lines, you don’t have to worry about the people behind you collapsing. That peace of mind is the value of the crutch.

Humility has never been an easy lesson. It contains elements of compromise and surrender. Our ability to speak eloquently and expound our views often stems only from our circumstances being reasonably comfortable. When the day comes that you too lose that planet in your orbit, you’ll know how precious a broken crutch can be.

Life isn’t just rational discussion. Life is truly, really living. And living sometimes requires not the right answer, but a reason that makes you willing to get up tomorrow.