Cat Power, the singer whose real name is Chan Marshall, has long been a influential presence in the annals of indie rock.  People find her music enticing, and her lyrics profoundly rich.  Her newest album, "Wanderer," has much to say about the pain and weight of abandoning, abandoning relationship, abandoning belief.  In this, she speaks to us all:  rarely do we let go of a treasure without suffering and pain.

     Someone once asked me what it would take for me to abandon my belief in God.  After thinking about it a minute, I said that my belief, like most beliefs, does not necessarily rest on dogma or creed.  Rather, it rests on experience and relationship.  We may believe with intellectual assent, but we experience belief with our heart.  And as Cat Power makes clear in her new album, when we wander away from what we know, we hurt, not in our mind but in our heart.

     Disbelieving in God might comfort my mind, but it will break my heart.  As Cat puts it, "For your gold is ages old before the end of your story; give my hand to Jesus before it went away with you . . . "