1st Trinity III, 2020, Metaphorical Masks

1st Trinity

Mark 8:27 - Mark 9:1

And Jesus went on with his disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi (in the north of the land at the source of the Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshiped as a divine being). And on the way there, he asked the disciples (and said to them), “Who do people say that I am?”

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say, Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Alexander-Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed, and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly, he told them this.

Then Peter took him aside and began to urge him not to let this happen. He, however, turned around, looked at his disciples, and reprimanded Peter, saying to him, “Withdraw from me; now the adversary is speaking through you! Your thinking is not divine but merely human in nature.”

And he called the crowd together, including his disciples and said to them, “Whoever would follow me must practice self-denial and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever is concerned about the salvation of their own soul will lose it, but whoever gives their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, their soul will find power and healing. For what use is it to a human being to gain the whole world if through that they damage their soul, which falls victim to the power of an empty darkness? What then can they give as ransom for their soul? In this present humanity, which denies the spirit and lives in error, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the shining revelation of the Father among his holy angels.”

And he said to them, “The truth I say to you, among those who are standing here, there are some who will not taste death before they behold the kingdom of God arising in human beings, revealing itself in the power and magnificence of the spirit.”

1^st Trinity

July 26, 2020

Mark 8:27-Mark 9:1

Both people and things wear metaphorical masks. The ugly bug in the garden turns out to be a beneficial. The carpenter building your cabinets turns out to have a Master’s in literature. If you can see beyond the surface, the world is full of surprises.

Peter and Christ 

Christ Jesus wore the mask of a poor, homeless itinerant preacher and healer. It took a flash of moral intuition for Simon Peter to catch a glimpse of what vastness lay behind the mask. He caught the flash of the Messiah, the Son of God.

The world itself wears a mask, much of it pasted on by our own way of perceiving it and thinking about it. And so, although he caught the greatness of Christ, Peter rejects Christ’s prediction of what he will do and suffer. It is too radically different from Peter’s expectations. And so he pastes a mask of human reasonableness onto the vastness of a truth he cannot comprehend.

Sometimes we too have a flash of insight. It can be fearsome. What seems to matter to Christ is that we not set ourselves in opposition to what must be; that we surrender ourselves to what He means to have happen in the world, no matter how frightening or repulsive or puzzling the mask may seem to us. We need to be able to say in the words of Adam Bittleston:

 

May the events that seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With a quiet mind

Through the Father’s ground of peace

On which we walk.

 

May the people who seek me

Stephen B. Whatley

            Come unto me;

May I receive them

With an understanding heart

Through the Christ’s stream of love

In which we live.

 

May the spirits who seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With a clear soul

Through the healing Spirit’s light

By which we see.*

 

---

*Adam Bittleston, Meditative Prayers for Today.  Order here.

4th Johnstide 2020, Our Enormity

4^th Johnstide

July 19, 2020

Matthew 11:2-15

When John heard in prison about the deeds of Christ, he sent his disciples to ask

Cornelius Galle Younger, John Baptist in Prison

him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?"

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are awakened, and those who have become poor receive the message of salvation. Blessed are those who are not offended by my Being.”

When they had gone, Jesus began to speak about John. “Why did you go out into the desert? Did you want to see a reed swaying in the wind? Or was it something else you wanted to see? Did you want to see a man in splendid garments? Those in splendid garments are in the palaces of kings. Did you go to see a man who is initiated into the mysteries of the spirit, a prophet? Yes, I say to you—he is more than a prophet. He it is of whom it is written:

Behold, I will send my angel before your face;

He shall prepare the way of your working in human hearts

So that your being may be revealed.

The truth I say to you: among all who are born of women, not one has risen up who is greater than John the Baptist, and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist, and even more, now, the kingdom of heaven will arise within human beings through the power of the will; those who exert themselves can freely grasp it. The deeds of the prophets and the content of the Law are words of the spirit that were valid [worked into the future] until the time of John. And if you want to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

4^th Johnstide

July 19, 2020

Matthew 11:2-15

A child may wish for a pony. If they receive a toy pony instead of a real one, there may be a disappointment. Yet in a child’s world of imagination, that toy pony may be able to take them on greater and broader adventures than any physical pony could.

The Hebrew people were expecting a certain kind of threefold Messiah. He would be a great king who would overthrow the Roman occupation. He would be a high priestly initiate. And he would be a great prophet. What they got instead was a poor itinerant preacher and healer who would foretell his own execution. Even John the Baptist, who had seen the Spirit of God descend upon him, became unsure if this was truly the Messiah. And yet….

Melchizedek

The reality of Christ in Jesus was far greater than their hopes and expectations demanded. Jesus asks them to look to His deeds of teaching and healing, for they are the beginning of the founding of a new human race, a new people, the Christ folk. Instead of being an earthly king, he would become the Lord of Karma.

Instead of serving as a priest in the temple in Jerusalem, he would fulfill in his own person the sacrificial rites of bread and wine that Melchizedek initiated. And he would give humanity the universal prayer that we call the Lord’s prayer.

Instead of merely foretelling the future, he would become humankind’s future.

In our lives too, often what we get from the Lord of Karma is far greater than what we wish for. And thus, we may unite our souls, our thoughts, our feelings, our will, with Christ and with whatever He wants to give us. It may not look anything like what we expected or hoped for. In fact, it may appear to be something we most decidedly did not want. But in His own secret way, Christ makes our lives inexpressibly deeper and richer. Stephen Levine says:

         There is a grace approaching

Grunewald

that we shun as much as death,

it is the completion of our birth.

 

It does not come in time,

but in timelessness

….

It is an insistent grace that draws us

to the edge and beckons us surrender

safe territory and enter our enormity. *

 

---

* Stephen Levine, “Millennium Blessing” in Breaking the Drought

 

3rd Johnstide 2020, Burden of Love

Click here for Audio Version

Johnstide

John 1:19-39

This is the testimony of John when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” Freely and openly, he confessed. He did not deny but confessed, “I am not the Christ [the Anointed].”

Then they asked him, “Who are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “No, I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”

John the Baptist, Hieronymous Bosch

Then they said, “Who are you? What answer are we to give to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?”

He said in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying in the loneliness: Prepare the way for the Lord [so that the Lord may enter into the inmost soul [self].”

And those who had been sent by the Pharisees asked him, “Why do you baptize if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

John answered them, “I baptize with water. But someone is standing in your midst whom you do not know, who comes after me although he was before me. I am not worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals.”

This took place in Bethany near the mouth of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The next day he [John] sees Jesus coming to him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes upon himself the burden of the sin of the world. He it is of whom I said: ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is greater than I  [for he is ahead of me].’ [After me comes one who was (generated) before me, for he is the prototype.] Even I did not know him; but for this, I have come, and have baptized with water so that human souls in Israel might become able to experience the revelation of his being.”

And John testified: “I saw how the Spirit descended upon him like a dove from the heavens and remained united with him. I did not know him, but he who sent me

Julia Stankova, Baptism of Christ

to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend so that it remains united with him, he it is who baptizes with the [breath of the] Holy [Healing] Spirit.’ And I saw this, and so I testify that this is God’s Son.”

The next day John was again standing there, and two of his disciples were with him. And as he saw Jesus walking past, he said, “Behold, the [sacrificial] Lamb of God [through whom humanity’s sense of self will be purified.]”

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” They answered, “Rabbi [Teacher], where are you staying [where do you live] [where do you take refuge]?”

He said, “Come, and you will see!” And they came and saw where he stayed [lived], and remained with him all that day. It was about the tenth hour [four o’clock].

3^rd Johnstide

July 12, 2020

John 1:19-34

Tissot, John the Baptist Preaching

Today’s reading begins with questions about identity. The Hebrew leadership asks John the Baptist who he is. In all humility, he acknowledges that he is not the Messiah, the anointed one of God. They ask him if he is Elijah, who was to precede the coming of the Messiah. And although Christ says later that ‘ he is Elijah who was to come,’* either John no longer remembers his previous existence, or else he is making the claim that he is no longer working in the grandiose style of the great prophetic leader of the Hebrews. Instead, he claims to be a single voice, speaking from a lonely and deserted place, saying: Make preparations.  John is who he is; he voices what needs to be said in the moment. He awakens our sense of personal responsibility.

In fact, John the Baptist epitomizes the state of the modern soul. We are who we are, now. We no longer remember previous lives—we may not even remember our current yesterdays! John in us is the single voice in us, speaking in the now, telling ourselves that we must prepare ourselves so that Christ can enter into us and abide in us.

We need to strengthen and create order in our thoughts, in our feeling life, so that an inner space arises, a space that stretches into a path for the entry of the Lamb of God. Christ came as the Lamb in order to carry the burden of human separation from the divine. This separation from the divine has created our capacity for our sins, our failings, our weaknesses. It creates our errors and our denials of the divine.

Christ, the divine Son, the God, would enter our souls so as to overcome our lonely separateness, and to reunite us with humanity’s Father. We open our souls to him. We strengthen and order our souls’ forces so that our thinking, our feeling, and our willing can become strong, weight-bearing, enduring; so that we, with Christ, can peacefully and lovingly carry the burden of the sin of the world. For as the poet says:

The weight of the world

John the Baptist, Anton Mengs

is love.

Under the burden

of solitude,

under the burden

of dissatisfaction

 

the weight,

the weight we carry

is love.**

 

---

* Matthew 11:14

** “Song”, Allen Ginsberg, in Collected Poems 1947-1980

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2nd Johnstide Homily 2020, Spirit Creates Order

2nd Johnstide

Matthew 3:1-17

In those days, John the Baptist came. He proclaimed his message in the isolation of the Judean desert. He said, “Change your hearts and minds. The realm of [the human being filled with] the heavens has come close.”

He it is of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks:

A voice is heard, calling in the loneliness [of the human soul]: ‘Prepare the way for the highest leader [within the soul], make his path straight and good [Order your feeling and thinking, so that within you a path arises for the inner Lord!].

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather girdle around his waist. Hard fruits and wild honey were his food.

At that time, people came out to him from Jerusalem and the whole of Judea and from the region around the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the flowing waters of the Jordan and confessed [admitted] their sins [failings, and the errors of their lives].

When he saw that many Pharisees and Sadducees also came for baptism, he said to them, ‘You sons of the serpent, who has told you how to escape from the coming World-Fire [Fury]? Now, therefore, strive after [to bring forth] the right fruits of the change of heart and mind. Do not think that you are safe by saying: We have Abraham as our father. I say to you: the heavenly Father is just as able to raise Abraham-sons from these dead stones. Already the ax is laid to the root of the trees [of the bloodlines], and every tree that does not bear good fruit is felled and thrown into the fire [of testing]. I baptize you with water to lead you to a change of consciousness [heart]. He who comes after me is mightier than I; unworthy am I even to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will cleanse his grain of the chaff. He will gather the wheat into the barn [for the future], but the chaff he will burn in an unquenchable fire.”

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the

Icon, Baptism in the Jordan

Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. But John refused and said, “It is I who need to be baptized by you—and now you come to me?”

Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now. It is good thus so that we fulfill properly all that destiny [divine righteousness] requires.” Then he consented.

Having been baptized Jesus was already coming up from the water again when behold, the heavens opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending in the form of a dove and alighting upon him. And a voice spoke out of the heavens:     

“This is my Son whom I love,

            [Today I have conceived him. Luke 3:22]

In him will I reveal myself.”

2nd Johnstide

July 5, 2020

Matthew 3:1-17

At the end of the day's work or a big project, the environment may have become disordered.  Clean-up is called for. A visitor to one of the original Waldorf curative schools was told that he could find the school's founder and teacher after-school still in the classroom, cleaning up. As the visitor approached, he could hear the teacher repeating a phrase again and again: The Spirit creates order! The Spirit creates order!

Icon,John the Baptist, Angel of the Desert, detail

Today's gospel reading describes such a moment in human history. The old phase of the elite bloodlines is over; their work is done. John the Baptizer said, "The ax has been laid to the roots of the trees," the ancestral trees of the bloodlines. This is because their mission, that of creating a pure bodily form for the Messiah, is complete. After this, there can only be decay; for the bloodlines are no longer capable of spiritual awareness.

Yet a new order is arriving. The Spirit creates order! Jesus comes to the Jordan as the beginning of a new era for human beings. Christ, the divine Son and our Brother, will enter humanity. Everything will be up-ended. Even John the Baptizer's perception of his own unworthiness is no hindrance. Now a new order, a new Spirit consciousness, has arrived. Now the divine will inhabit the body. Now heaven can reveal itself on earth, for a new spirit consciousness of love for all human beings, beyond bloodline, tribe, or nation, will slowly and gradually take over the earth. 

It is true that elitism, tribalism, and nationalism will ever try to interfere with the new order. But they have no future. Only the Spirit creates order. Now is the time to recognize that all of humankind is one family, for we are all children of God. Here the 15th Psalm is a kind of prophecy: 

Lord, who can be trusted with power,

Codex Rossanensis, Christ as Good Samaritan

and who may act in your place?

Those with a passion for justice,

who speak the truth from their hearts;

who have let go of selfish interests

and grown beyond their own lives;

who see the wretched as their family

and the poor as their flesh and blood.

They alone are impartial

and worthy of the people's trust.

Their compassion lights up the whole earth,

and their kindness endures forever.*

 

 

*Psalm 15, in The Psalms, translations by Stephen Mitchell

 

1st Johnstide 2020, I am not I

1^st Johnstide

Mark 1:1-13

This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah:

 

Behold, I send my angel before your face.

He is to prepare your way.

Hear the voice of one calling in the loneliness of the human soul

Prepare the way for the Lord within the soul,

Make his paths straight, so that he may find entrance into the innermost human being!

 Thus did John the Baptist appear in the loneliness of the desert. He proclaimed Baptism, the way of a change of heart and mind, for the acknowledgment of sin. And they went out to him from all of Judea and Jerusalem and received baptism from him in the river Jordan and recognized and confessed their failings.

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. Fruits and wild honey were his food. And he proclaimed:     

‘After me comes one who is mightier than I. I am not even worthy to bend down before Him and to undo the straps of His sandals. I have baptized you with water,

but He will baptize you with the fire of the Holy [healing] Spirit.’

In those days it happened: Jesus of Nazareth came to Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.

And at the same time, as he rose up again out of the water, he beheld how the spheres of the heavens were torn open, and the spirit of God descended upon him like a dove.

And a voice sounded from the world of the spirit:

‘You are my son, the beloved - in you is my revelation.’ [‘Today I have conceived (begotten) you.’ Luke 3:22]

St. Johnstide

June 28, 2020

Mark 1: 1-11

As we grow older, our awareness expands. Imagine going back in time to visit our younger self. Imagine what we would want to say to that younger self out of our years of experience since our youth. Imagine how possibly painful our older self-awareness would be in the face of our former innocent intentions. And imagine how terrified our younger self would be to encounter this someone from the future who is so strangely familiar, who so intimately knows us.

John the Baptist is humankind’s older self. He is the older self who has gone ahead of us. He has something he wants to say to us. He is acutely aware of his own and humankind’s failings. Out of his broader awareness, he encourages us to change our way of thinking, to undergo a change of heart. This is all in preparation for an encounter with Christ Jesus, the innocent younger self of humankind.

John encounters the innocence of Jesus,

and the enormity of the spirit of God that descends upon Jesus like a dove. The result for this older self of John is a deepening of humility. ‘I am not worthy’, he says. I am doing my best to serve what God has as intention for humankind. But HE is the embodiment of the pure and grand intentions of the Godhead. He is the true prototype.  And thus He is even before me. He is my own younger self as God intended me to be.

We can experience painful self-awareness of our shortcomings, our failures to be what both God and we intended to be; and at the same time, this is a deep experience of God’s love for us, His willingness to sacrifice Himself for us, so that we can start over, begin again to be what we, and He intended us to be.

We shy away from such encounters; such painful self-awareness terrifies us; and to be so intimately known can be devastating. But it is a necessary step on the way to experiencing the mildness, the acceptance, the calm radiant forgiveness of the One who is our ideal future self. Such self-awareness is a necessary passage into the forgiveness that allows us to start over, to begin at the beginning again. It is the experience of what the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez speaks of when he says: 

I am not I.

I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see,

Whom at times I manage to visit,

And whom at other times I forget;

The one who remains silent when I talk

The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,

The one who takes a walk where I am not.

The one who will remain standing when I die.*

 

* “I Am Not I”, by Juan Ramón Jiménez, in Risking Everything, ed. By Roger Housden, p. 19.

3rd June Trinity 2020, No Hands But Yours

June Trinity 

Luke 19:1-10 (Madsen)

And he came to Jericho and went through the town.

See, there was a man called Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and a rich man. He wanted to see Jesus, to know who he was, but because he was small of stature, he could not see him in the great crowd. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a mulberry-fig tree to see him, for he had to come past there.

And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up to him and said, ‘Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must be a guest in your house!’ And he came down hurriedly and made him welcome in his house with great joy. All who saw it became indignant and said, ‘He has gone in to be a guest in the house of a sinner.’

Then Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, ‘Lord, see, half of all that I have I give to the poor, and if I have taken too much from someone, I give it back to him fourfold.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘So today healing has come to this house. This man, too, is a true son of Abraham and the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.’

3^rd June Trinity

June 21, 2020

Luke 19: 1-10

One’s placement in life, one’s job, vocation, or upbringing, does not necessarily say anything about one’s moral stature. Being poor and lowly does not prevent one from being a moral giant. But neither does being rich or elevated. It all depends on the individual’s inner and outer response to their circumstances.

Zacchaeus was both Jewish and a publican, that is, a tax collector for the Romans occupiers. As a Jew, he was in an awkward position. Not only did Zaccheaus collect Roman taxes from his fellow Jews; he was also the ‘head of department’ near Jericho. Because of its locality along the major trade route, taxes were a rich source of income for the Romans. It was likely Zacchaeus’ position that led to his being wealthy. His position also meant that he was despised by his own people, not only because he was working for the oppressors, but for reasons of physical and ritual purity. (In other places in the gospels* the Jewish leadership criticize Jesus for ‘eating with sinners and tax-collectors.’) The gospel’s mention of his ‘small stature’ may also be a metaphorical reference his ‘standing’ in the Jewish community.

Yet Zacchaeus has the desire to know Jesus. His ‘running ahead and climbing the mulberry-fig tree’ may also be seen as a description of his inner state: He prepares himself ahead of time and elevates his spirit for the encounter. And then not only can he see Jesus, but he will be seen.

In any case, Jesus is aware of him and responds positively to him by entering into a close relationship with him, much to Zacchaeus’ joy.

And it is clear from what follows in the gospel that Zacchaeus has used his wealth and position in a moral way: of his own wealth, he gives half to the poor. And in his official position, he is conscientious in how much he charges and scrupulous in making fourfold restitution for any mistakes. He is a just man, using his position and personal wealth to benefit the whole community. Jesus calls him a true son of Abraham and connects with him. Zacchaeus is someone Jesus can work with.

Christ sees us all, elevated or lowly. He sees into our hearts and into our deeds. He brings His healing work of redemption to all, despite the public’s opinion about them or their status in the community. It is the state of our hearts that Christ is interested in. It is our love translated into deeds of justice and mercy that make us those He can work with. For especially now, Christ needs us in order to do his work of healing in the world. In the words of Theresa of Avila

Christ has no body now but yours.

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which 

He looks compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

 

*See Mt 9:11, Mk 2:16, Lk 5:3

2nd June Trinity 2020, Truth is Here

June Trinity

John 4:1-26

At this time, the Lord became aware that it was rumored among the Pharisees that Jesus was finding and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, though his disciples did.) Therefore he left Judea and went back again to Galilee.

Now he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was also there. Jesus was weary with the journey, and he sat down by the well. It was about midday, the sixth hour.

Then a Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, “Give me to drink,” for his disciples had gone into town to buy bread.

Then the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?” For the Jews avoided all contact with the Samaritans.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew how the divine world now draws near to human beings, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me to drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you the water of life [the living water].

“Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From where will you draw the living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give them, their thirst will be quenched for all time. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up as true life for eternity.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may never be thirsty again, and need never come here again to draw.”

He said to her, “Go call your husband and show him to me.”

“I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You have well said that you have no husband. Five husbands you have had, and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.

Jesus answered, “Believe me, O woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship a being you do not know; we worship what we do know. That is why salvation had to be prepared for among the Jews. But the hour is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father with the power of the spirit and in awareness [knowledge] of the truth.”

Then the woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ. When he comes, he will teach us all things.”

Jesus said to her, “I AM he who stands before you and speaks to you.”

June 14, 2020

John 4, 1-26

Human beings have always visited sacred places in order to honor the divine. At first, they were simple stone memorials at a place where a great spiritual event or visitation had occurred. Then gradually temples were built as gathering places for honoring the divine with story, song and ritual.

Christ meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob's 2,000-year-old well. She asks him about places of worship. Should humankind worship on a mountain top, or in a temple? Christ answers that the sacred space will be within the human heart and mind. "The hour will come, and it has come, when the true worshippers of God will worship the Father," He says, "with the power of the Spirit and in knowing awareness of the truth." John 4: 23

We can imagine that a kind of soul altar exists within each human heart. And when a group of human beings come together to enact a ritual of offering, the walls of

each heart expand. They fill the room, so that hearts work among hearts, within hearts. Together they form a greater heart, the common heart of the community. Hearts offer themselves in a common spirit, out of a communal truth. As the poet e.e. cummings said,

 

seeker of truth

 

follow no path

all paths lead where

 

truth is here*

 

* e. e. cummings, in Complete Poems 1904-1962 p. 775.

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