If I had to take away a lesson from all these events I've recalled, and those that follow, it would be this:

It's no mark of weakness to question your innermost convictions. We never argue fiercely in favor of ideas we are absolutely sure about. We know the sun will rise and set tomorrow, as it has for eons. We argue absolutely only when we harbor some doubt.

With the rolling thunder of our own private crusade drowning out all doubt, how do we distinguish the real agenda behind our actions from the "published" one? We may not even be aware of our deceit, of the true motives arising out of past hurts, real or imagined, of all those perceived trespasses against us, the ones that cast those we claim to love in the light of adversaries to be overcome.

If Jesse Carl's life had any meaning, it is to show that his greatest weakness was his absolute certainty, setting into motion events that repeated again and again over generations the torments of his own private hell. He would punish himself and others to maintain it.  It was

the jealous god that molded his thinking, and that same jealous god would accept no others before it.

If he had seen Tommy as his wife and daughter saw him, he might have been more the loving father and less the terrifying patriarch. It was evident that Tommy was destined to be a good, if not a great, man. Only a father blinded by his own certainty — and blind to his own inner rage and resentment — would fail to see that. If he had taken a hand in the caring for Jessie's illegitimate son, rather than shunning him, leaving Eva to pursue her teenage dreams, would I even be writing any of this?

The same holds true for Joe, and Jessie, and for Eva, to the extent that she bought into those same ideas and couldn't shake the doubt that others had planted with their absolute certainty.

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