Toward Common Ground

Force of Nature

Tonight I watched a powerfully inspiring documentary called Force of Nature featuring the wisdom and stories from the life of the Canadian elder and environmentalist David Suzuki. I encourage you to find this film on DVD and watch it. Here is a link to see a trailer for the film. http://www.davidsuzuki.org/david/legacy-force-of-nature/

Independence Day

On this Fourth of July, when we celebrate our nation’s acquiring of independence from foreign tyranny, and as I give thanks for living my life in the relative freedom that this has allowed me, I take time to contemplate my own strong independent streak, over against, paradoxically, my own strong spiritual focus on interdependence.

Once, as a young wife and mother, recently moved to a new city where I knew no one, I ventured forth to the public library, a familiar source of comfort to me in any location. I came home with a number of books I had checked out seemingly at random, two small stacks. One stack contained books by and about the Jewish mystic, Martin Buber, about whom I knew nothing. The other stack contained books by and about Carl Jung, whose autobiography I had read in college. I’ve remember this small library excursion for more than forty years, because, as it turns out, the views of these two giants of the early twentieth century, counter-balancing as they are, would shape my life.

In San Diego, where I lived then, mysterious synchronicities followed. I sought out an Episcopal church, and lo and behold, the priest there focused much of his educational curriculum for the parish on the works of Jung, had corresponded with Jung, drew parallels between Jung’s views and the church’s spiritual trajectory.

Then, shortly after finding this parish, I was able to be in attendance at a local university when this same priest was on a panel debating and discussing the nature of the divine with, guess who, the world’s foremost scholar on the works of Martin Buber!

Why do I go back to this today, so many years later, on the Fourth of July?

Because, for one thing, Jung’s whole psychology came to be focused on what he called “individuation,” a process involving obtaining some “independence” of a person’s personal consciousness from the vastly more powerful other factors of the psyche; the archetypes, for example, can be tyrannical in their power over us if we do not gain some independent viewpoint and perspective toward them, by gaining an appropriate relationship with the deeper source-ground of all consciousness out of which our personal egos evolved (much as the American colonies had to gain a new balance of power in their relationship with the homeland of England that had become tyrannical over their offspring colonies in America).

Meanwhile, on the other hand, Martin Buber’s philosophy strongly emphasized, instead, the “between,” the intersection between individuals, or the space between the “I” and the “Other,” or as Buber preferred to call it, the “I” and the “Thou.” He said that this median, interdependent space, where individuals meet, was the place of the most sacred, the place where divinity reveals itself most strongly.

My life’s intellectual and spiritual journey has been a balancing act between these two poles, or these two sides of one coin, these two equally necessary aspects of reality as I understand it.

We all have a strong and continuing need for “independence,” both nationally and individually. In our personal lives as in our relationships there is always need for being our own unique, independent, authentic selves. In this country, the rights of the individual are paramount.

We also, however, both as individuals and as nations, have the necessity of recognizing our inescapable interdependence with everything else—everything on the food chain, everything in the ecological chain, every other balancing global reality. No man, nor any nation, is an island, complete unto itself. More and more this view of reality presses upon us, in this time of a dead-locked congress, of the impossibility of resolving global warming without the cooperation of other nations, etc., as well as this time of an ever-increasing certainty that we, as individuals, must take into account the needs and gifts of others if we are to survive.

And may I venture even further and say that we need to recognize our interdependent relationship with that which is beyond the individual or the nation, our relationship with what, for want of a better word, we call Spirit, that deepest Source Ground of all existence, mysterious and profoundly involved in our existence. Why would I, for example, without some other “divine” inspiration and direction, have decided to bring home those two sets of books by Jung and Buber, there in a city where two other individuals, the priest and the scholar, both lived and taught from these two streams of wisdom that changed my life forever. Inter-related fields of consciousness inter-acting, producing meaningful and creative life.

So, today on July 4, in the United States of America, I contemplate the sometimes difficult balance between these two factors that I consider so vital to my own existence—independence and interdependence. It seems to me that this has become, even more than ever, a vitally important issue in our national existence as well.

So I send you today my greetings and blessings for independence and interdependence, with these wise words from the Sufi mystic Gibran, written years ago:

“…Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

Beyond Our Differences

This amazing documentary, with commentary by hundreds of world spiritual leaders, is more than ever important to our world. The following link will provide not only a preview, but also hundreds of clips from the film, easily accessed from the scrolled icons at the bottom of the webpage. I hope you will watch it if you have not seen it already, or see it again if you have. Buy the DVD to see it in its entirety and share it with others to support the continued presentation of the message it carries. It is a most worthwhile, even essential message. I join my own voice and prayers for peace and transformation in our world as I send my love to you.
Beyond Our Differences\"

In Whose Name

We in the Fellowship often come together around the deepest and most important subjects of all, the big questions, the ultimate meanings.

If, however, anyone comes hoping to find from me the answer to life’s biggest questions, or a formula, or a definition, or some absolute certainty about this or that, you will no doubt be disappointed.

For, you see, it seems to me that to put any definition on the Ultimate, any name or any title on the Infinite, is to talk nonsense, for the Ultimate and the Infinite cannot be bound by any such limitations as name or definitions.

Those of you who know me well have heard me many times address myself to the “Great Mystery.” I seek to be careful so to admit the mysteriousness, the paradoxical, the transcendent, the mystical, that which by its nature is beyond my ordinary consciousness or my ability to define.

A Buddhist teacher I have known calls himself merely a finger pointing beyond himself.

So I do not have an answer to the great questions, and I know that you do not have them either.

But our meetings, our conversations, our explorations, and even our analyses, are useful, especially when we come in a spirit of humility and openness to the influx of new meaning from within and beyond ourselves. For we know that that can happen. Amazing things can happen. I do know this, that when we come together, we share wisdom, empowering wisdom, that can benefit each of us and the world.

It is as Jesus said, in words that he hoped would be meaningful to the people of his own time, “When two or three come together in my name, I will be there…”

Ever since then, of course, people have been trying to decode the mystery of what “in his name” means.

Many horrific things have been done, it was said, in his name—religious wars, for example. But that surely is not what he meant. Surely his meaning had to do with an expansion of something else—love, power, spirit, understanding.

But something does happen, he says, when two or three or more people come together in a certain way, in a certain spirit, that is akin to his spirit, in his “name.”

Do we know what that is? Some people pray in his name, quite literally, “In the name of Jesus, I pray.” (And often those people say that if you are not saved “in Jesus’ name,” you are doomed.)

But is that what Jesus meant, merely to literally state his given name, rather than to call upon the content of his spirit? Jesus always pointed beyond himself also, to his “father,” to the Infinite, to the Great Mystery of “God.”

Somehow I think he meant something more than merely mouthing a formula or a creed.

Christians speak about the “ultimate sin,” taking the name of the Lord in vain. What does that mean?

Again, is it what is often taught, a “blasphemy against the Holy Ghost?” Then what, others ask, is the Holy Ghost? Is it not Mystery, mysterious? Is it something that can be narrowly defined by any one of us, even the Pope or the priest or some other individual?

For me, to try to answer literally and simplistically any of those questions is, in fact, the blasphemy.

To think that any of us have the ultimate handle on truth, that we can define the Mystery, that we can name the infinite by calling it simply a singular name, however venerated—God, or Jesus, or Buddha, or Allah, or any other name—that is to sin against the Ultimate Great Vastness, the Great Totality, the All That Is that is beyond any limitation or definition or name.

The ancient Hebrews understood this, refusing to refer to their divinity by a “given name.” They would have no images of their divinity nor were they permitted to write any sort of name for it.

The ancient Greeks and others, too, understood; to look upon the face of a “god or goddess,” they said, might incinerate you on the spot. Best not go trying to declare that you knew all about them.

Even the storytellers, the wisdom keepers of the olden days, understood that to know the name, say, of Rumplestilskin was to have power over him. And who, pray tell, has power over the Ultimate?

Sometimes, in addition to speaking of the Great Mystery, I have simply used the word Wholeness or Holiness. It is as close as I can get to that which is boundless, taking everything in, leaving nothing out.

Fairy tales have it right. The thirteenth godmother, left out of the invitation to the party, rises up in indignation and curses the whole thing.

Leave nothing out. Neither Palestinian nor Jew, neither Muslim nor Christian, neither Catholic nor Protestant, neither Korean nor African or Brazilian, neither Liberal nor Conservative, neither Educated nor Ignorant, neither Young nor Old or Anything Else.

Leave nothing out. As a precious four year old said recently, in summation (when his sister had prayed on and on for some long time for this one and for that one she loved), “God, just bless everybody, even the ones you don’t like.”

This child had it right. Whatever totality we mean by Great Spirit or Great Mystery or God, it has to include, by its very nature, even the ones we don’t like.

When will we ever learn that basic simple essential truth?

One of my daughters once said of me, “For Mom, life is but a metaphor.” Right. A metaphor shows connection between things, the ways things are alike, resonant. And it is the connection, the never-ending connectivity, the coming together of “two or three” or any or all, that allows the power of whatever we hope for when we reach out beyond ourselves to be “in the midst of us.” (And it does come, in the midst of us; I personally, though I cannot name or define or even describe it, know it exists, and I know the “feeling” of it when it comes, for me, and surely it is a boundless, all-inclusive love.)

My prayer today is that more and more people find ways to realize their eternal, inescapable connection, in a loving way, to everything and everyone else, within the sacred Wholeness that simply Is, regardless of what words we use for naming it, regardless of whatever rules and regulations and definitions our cultures have tacked on or assimilated or clung to, regardless of our religious or political or national affiliation.

May we find, in the name of all that is good, an ability to rest in Mystery. May we cease in any attempt to make “God” in the image and definition of our own constructs or those of any of our churches or societies.

May we be humble enough to recognize the infinite variety, for example, of nature—every grass blade, every wild flower, every separate raindrop and rainbow and treetop and mountaintop and all of it, infinitely varied, but also, all of it, part of the wholeness of creation, joined together by a life force that is all-encompassing.

In that perspective, in awareness of the eternal, blissful connectivity within the Wholeness of nature, of our own natures, and of the nature of the world—in that awareness inevitably we move beyond divisive politics and polemics, move beyond loneliness and alienation, move beyond judgments and punishments and provocations.

We instead find simply peacefulness and centeredness and creative power to be all of the best that we are meant to be, even as we find the ability to forgive others for what we see as their differences from us. We feel instead the infinite love that many people through the ages have known and shared and praised as Holy.

May we in the Fellowship continue to come together in that Spirit.

This is my prayer for us today.

And furthermore, to lighten up…

I hope you read my last post I just put up there “Complexity.” Serious as it was, it was, I think, important, so if you haven’t read “Complexity,” read it first, and then have a go at this.

Here is a perfect balancing act, right to the point, that I think will make your day, doom and gloom transformed to lighthearted music and dance, called “Bring me Sunshine”:

Complexity

While quietly weeding my garden today, I had time to reflect on the variety of comments I have heard this week in reference to the two men who caused such tragic destruction in Boston last week.

On the one hand, there were students and friends and neighbors of the bombers, people who knew them and called them “ordinary American boys” who, these people said, “I would never have believed could have done these terrible things.” On the other hand, there were many commentators and individuals who referred to the two young men as “monsters.”

Truly they were murderers who did monstrous things, but we miss an important opportunity to prevent such events in the future if we fail to see how complex these young men were, how complex we all are. To dismiss them as monsters is dangerous to our future well-being.

Surely it is more complicated than that, and we do well to discover and consider carefully how these young men were shaped by circumstances, so that we can help, perhaps, in some way, to see that other children are not shaped in similar ways and commit atrocities in the future.

Instead of wringing our hands and saying “How could this happen?” perhaps we can instead consider what we, each of us, can do to see that it does not happen again.  To do this we must take the time to study the complexity of history and to consider the effects of all our actions.

All of this made me think of something I wrote years ago when I was trying to come to terms with my own complexity, the dark and light of my own upbringing. I offer it below as a reminder that neither terror nor complexity are new, and as a sort of prayer for all of us, victims, villains, commentators all, that we remember the wide sweep of history as we consider Boston and other such events.

I ask you to be aware that the circumstances of my childhood that I describe below occurred some seventy years ago, and in my writing about this time, in order to be authentic and true to my experience, I write with words that are today considered offensive (and indeed were offensive then), but were in common usage.

Not to use those words would be to belie the everyday ugliness some of us grew up with. Much has changed since then, of course, but there is perhaps a need to remember, because the tendencies to make absolute judgments one way or another, and the ability of all of us to suffer, has not changed. The urgency for empathy is always with us, and we must look ugliness in the face if we are to change it.

Here is my journal entry written nearly forty years ago:

Little Black Boy

little black boy,
shiny as a round, wet marble…

…was your name Henry?
I seem to think it was,
Henry, wasn’t it…
what ever happened to you?…

my first playmate, age two
or three. strange my mother
let me play with you,
white, southern that we were,
full of dark fears…

…”big black man
under her bed, had a knife,
too, wonder he hadn’t…”

perhaps it was only that you and I were so small,
obviously innocent.    we played hide and seek
in the tall weeds in the back yard
of the rented clapboard house
we lived in…

…that house, I remember, had
pale white venetian blinds;
I lived in that house, my daddy
already dead, with mama and all
those lively relatives, during
the war, when everybody worked
in the shipyard, and talked
about Germans…

one day, I remember, clear as clear,
I sat in my little wooden rocking chair,
there in a clearing in the tall weeds,
and you, Henry, danced, round and round me,
as I laughed and clapped my hands.

I remember the sunlight, as you danced,
shimmering everywhere, following you,
glints of radiant sunsheen
dancing, too, it seemed,
with you…

and then you had a turn rocking, I think;
you liked the little wooden chair,
red as a polished apple,
hand-made by an old white-haired man,
Mr. Page, who also laughed, deep in this throat…

…my children sit in the rocker
now; Mr. Page is long dead.
what ever happened to you, Henry?…

thinking of you, though, besides the sunlight,
there is, like a sliver of broken glass,
memory of the night of race riot.

you lived in nigger town
and I lived a few blocks down.

during the riot, my white folks and I sat
for days and nights and watched through slits
like narrowed eyes in those
pale venetian blinds…

…lights out, doors locked,
listening to sirens and the radio,
full of static and the National Guard,
curfews, and the red glow of huge
fires raging in nigger town…

a crowd of male relatives I hardly knew,
come to town special, carrying long guns,
to protect us, they said, from niggers
gone mad, made jokes
about all the gruesome ways
niggers were being found, dead…

and I, small as I was, trembled
in fear, for myself and mine, true,
even as I wept secretly into my sleeve,
thinking of you…

…were you dead?
was that your house burning?
(suddenly I realized
I’d never seen your house)
was your father spread-eagled
in the woods, guts spilled,
eyes put out, manhood severed?
Henry?…

I was only two or three years old,
you were my friend, perhaps my only friend.
did I ever see you again?
I can’t remember…

there’s only the sunlight shimmering
the day you danced, fused with that
firelight that was a lethal burn, burn…

…what ever happened to you?
Henry? was it Henry, your name?

because of you, little loved black boy,
shiny as a marble, sunsheen on you,
and that night of horror,
something seared through and through me–

the knowing that love, like honor, is color blind,
and that dark and light are two sides
of one mystical, mysterious whole,
inseparable, and that ideas

like right and wrong, and
beautiful and ugly,
and innocence and guilt
dance together, until
they melt down one another.

later I would walk with your Dr. King, and sing
freedom songs, and bring up my own children
to understand.   but who can understand…

…how dark it was,
how full of fear,
long guns everywhere,
glinting in the dark,
guns I’d never seen before,
protecting us “from some nigger”
(from you? Henry?)…

from some (black) who, perhaps, (no doubt,
I now know, driven mindless by indignant rage)
might empty a stolen shotgun, they said,
right there through our (bleak, grey) walls,
(hardly better than their own)…

as the red lights from fires reflected
through our pale venetian blinds
and the heavy smell of smoke that might be
flesh, your flesh,

took away my breath, and hot tears,
hidden in the dark, were searing fears
that left an indelible mark

of black and white, and dark and light,
so that I was, prematurely,
stamped with complex truths

I cannot now live without

of  “yes, that” and “not that,” different and the same.

…what ever happened to you,
little black boy?
Henry, wasn’t it?
wasn’t your name Henry?
wasn’t it? wasn’t it Henry?…

This Week of Weeks

My dearly beloved friends and family,

Like you, I am sure, this week, including as it has the events in Boston, Washington, and now the small town of West in Texas, and also the places where storms may ravage our countryside and our cities, this week has sent me into a deep and quiet place within.

At first I simply felt exhausted of sorrow, adrift in a vast emptiness, having not even enough energy to be called hopelessness.

But I endure such states of consciousness knowingly, aware that they are natural and normal results of my human conditioning in such circumstances. The Bible records that even Jesus wept, and so do we.

And after the tears and the emptiness, then we can let go into quietness and calm, where our balance can be restored.

As I do not adhere to any particular religion and rather honor what I consider the best of each spiritual tradition, I reach out in my weakness at times such as this to many sources for strength, not the least of which is the natural world that surrounds me—the beauty and abundance of the earth, the grandeur and vastness of the night sky, the gentleness of the butterflies that settle on the lush blooming iris, the speaking compassion of the birds, and, yes, even the voices of other human persons living far away who call to me on the telephone or the internet. All of these bind me tighter to life, to the love of life, to love itself. This raises me up, even out of despair.

So this week, I have prayed, in my own way, for each and all who suffer. Even in my sense of loss, I have held a steady place, here at Earthsprings, a place of stillness and calm, and I hope that this radiates out to all.

Today I finally find myself able to add words, my own, to the many words already spoken by others. I hope you were able to watch the complete ceremony today in Boston where children’s voices in song and the wisdom of many elders from a variety of religious traditions were so healing.

My words here, now, are, of course, meant to uplift, but also to caution. For I know that our human conditioning not only can bring despair but also can bring thoughts of vengeance and anger and divisive hatred, all detrimental to our own and others’ well-being. In the cultural climate in which we live, we are greatly at risk of losing our way.

So I offer you here some of the images and some of the passages that strengthen me in days like these. I hope they are meaningful to you.

Sometimes it is difficult to find passages that exactly match my mood or my need. But today my thoughts are of compassion, compassion not only for the victims of violence but also for the perpetrators whose mental condition has driven them to such extremes. Our society’s need to care for those in mental darkness is so great and so little acknowledged that I feel compelled to raise up these destroyers, these killers, as those also in great need of our prayers.

Many are the voices raised for the victims. I add my voice in prayer for the mentally deranged who have been so twisted and perhaps tormented by the life they live, by the distorted thoughts and violent images that assault them, by their judgments of wrongs done unto them, by, in short, the evil that has taken hold of them. They too are victims.

So I search out passages of scripture that take me beyond myself, beyond my own anger and self-righteousness, into forgiveness and compassion, even for the least, the very least and darkest of my brothers and sisters.

And, as we all feel, somewhere inside, the wounded child crying out, “Why, why, God?” I find that I again have to come to terms with, even forgive, life as it is, with meaning when it is absent, with “the ways of God” that are beyond my comprehension, and I steady myself by entering into this place of absolute surrender to the holiness, however it may be, of the Great Mystery in which I live and move and have my being.

I offer these words of many prophets, wiser than I:

“The good road and the road of difficulties you have made me cross; and where they cross the place is holy.” Native American. Black Elk.

“In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” Christian. Martin Luther King

“What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters…” Sufi. Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet.

“O Heavenly Father, we beseech thee to have mercy upon all thy children who are living in mental darkness. Restore them to strength of mind and cheerfulness of spirit, and give them health and peace.” Christian. The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer

“Hatreds never cease through hatreds in this world; through love alone they cease. This is the eternal law.” Buddhism. Dhammapada 3-5.

“According to Anas ibn Malik, the Prophet said, ‘Help your brother whether he is oppressor or oppressed.’ Anas replied to him, ‘O Messenger of God, a man who is oppressed I am ready to help, but how does one help an oppressor?’ ‘By hindering him doing wrong,’ he said.” Islam. Hadith of Bukhari

“Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, says the Lord God, and not rather that he should return from his ways and live?” Judaism. Ezekiel 18.23.

“A superior being does not render evil for evil; this is a maxim one should observe; the ornament of virtuous persons is their conduct. One should never harm the wicked or the good or even criminals meriting death. A noble soul will ever exercise compassion even toward those who enjoy injuring others or those of cruel deeds when they are actually committing them—for who is without fault?” Hinduism. Ramayana, Yuddha Kanda 115

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Christianity. Matthew 5.43.

“It may be that God will ordain love between you and those whom you hold as enemies. For God has power over all things; and God is Oft-forgiving. Most Merciful.” Islam. Qur’an 60.7

“Brethren, if outsiders should speak against me, or against the Doctrine, or against the Order, you should not on that account either bear malice, or suffer resentment, or feel ill will. If you, on that account, should feel angry and hurt, that would stand in the way of your own self-conquest.” Buddhism. Digha Nikaya i.3.

“Says Nanak, ‘True lovers are those who are forever absorbed in the Beloved. Whoever discriminates between treatment that is held good or bad, is not a true lover—he rather is caught in calculations.’ ” Sikhism. Adi Granth, Asa-ki-Var, M.2, p 474.

“May love triumph over contempt, May the true-spoken word triumph over the false-spoken word, May truth triumph over falsehood.” Zoroastrianism. Yasna 60.5

“Man should subvert anger by forgiveness, subdue pride by modesty, overcome hypocrisy with simplicity, and greed by contentment.” Jainism. Samanasuttam 136.

“Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” Jesus

“O God, Almighty and merciful, who healest those that are broken in heart, and turnest the sadness of the sorrowful to joy; Let thy fatherly goodness be upon all that thou hast made. Remember in pity such as are this day destitute, homeless, or forgotten of their fellow-men. Bless the congregation of the poor. Uplift those who are cast down. Mightily befriend innocent sufferers, and sanctify to them the endurance of their wrongs. Cheer with hope all discouraged and unhappy people, and by thy heavenly grace preserve from falling those whose penury tempteth them to sin; though they be troubled on every side, suffer them not to be distressed; though they be perplexed, save them from despair…” Christian. From the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

“If hell is the wasteland, then purgatory would be the journey where you leave the place of pain….You really do not have a sacred place, a rescue land, until you can find some little field of action, or place to be, where it’s not a wasteland, where there is a little spring of ambrosia. It’s a joy that comes from inside. It is not something that puts the joy in you, but a place that lets you so experience your own will, your own intention, and your own wish that, in small, the joy is there. The sin against the Holy Ghost, I think, is despair. The Holy Ghost is that which inspires you to realization, and despair is the feeling that nothing can come. That is absolute hell. Find a place where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” Joseph Campbell.

Easter happening…

Earthsprings. Outside, at the picnic benches, surrounded by white blooming dogwood trees, my grandsons and I are starting to dye Easter eggs. We have carefully measured the vinegar and water and stirred the dye. We have each gently dropped a boiled egg into separate cups of lovely color.

The seven-year-old counts how many more eggs he will get to dye. The four-year-old begins immediately to try to get his egg out of the dye.

“Leave it there awhile,” I say. “Let it dye.”

He does as he is told. He sits silently and stares at the egg in the colored water.

For a few minutes. Then, again, he struggles to get the egg out of the cup.

“The longer you leave it in there, the more it will dye,” I say to him.

He looks up at me in astonishment and disbelief, his dark eyes wide in his sweet round face, and says, “But Grandma, do you really, really want it to really die?”

After my awareness dawns, I spend a few moments attempting to explain to him the difference between those two words. I can tell he never really trusts my reasoning abut this issue, and so I help him get his precious egg out of the dye/die.

Later, I reflect that this is indeed a valid question for Easter, and a valid distinction. So many things “dye” my consciousness, what do I “really, really” want to be careful to keep eternally alive.

Certainly love. And the passionate concerns of innocence.

Touchstones and Bedrock

Opening Our Eyes and Hearts