A number of years ago my wife and I and our two sons sat on the lawn of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center to see and listen to the Brooklyn Boys Choir sing. How wonderful! - a beautiful day and evening with my own family who I loved very much - we were healthy, happy and blessed. A number of summers later I was working just a 2 hour walk north of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco when I found a Newbury Award book about a future society where only the perfect were allowed too live and everyone had an assigned role in their community. When they no longer served their purpose the people voluntarily reported for termination. I was shocked ... so were our protagonists who bravely left that society and found a not so perfect world but perhaps better morality and certainly more compassion. The next spring I was visiting a little village along the military highway leading to Russia through Georgia when two dozen children excitedly came in and performed a series of pipe jigs and a lively concert in honor of mothers day and (I was informed) in honor of me their guest from America. A few months later I returned to America for the summer and was working in the dirty ugly and dangerous streets of New Jersey just blocks from the Statue of Liberty a symbol of hope and relief for thousands of refugees from many places when I found a book about an orphan girl from a long time ago who had been sponsored to attend a very good college. It changed her entire outlook on life - giving her a self respect, optimism and broad capabilities which she developed to become a self sustaining author. A year later I was in a church in Georgia with many of my students for an excursion. Long ago government authorities had whitewashed the walls to destroy the beautiful murals depicting Gods many blessings to humanity. As I stood in that barren stone sanctuary a beam of warm strong sunlight spread down from the big windows and seemed to restore a sense of divine love. My coworker Kate noticed my attention and photographed this beautiful moment. I think of my sons. I think of their mother. I think of the love and hope, joys and peace we have shared together ... then I think of the world we find ourselves in and the progress that is made. Peace and Hope are available in all places if we have love in our hearts and in how we interact we also can see the alternatives available through meanness, greed and control. This Ave Maria song is honor to the holiest of women to live on Earth. My hope is for my children and all people to live in hope and peace and love and joy. With winter approaching and its coldness (for the northern hemisphere) may we all seek and find, build and share the warm and joyful.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 05:47:32 +0000
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