GODSPEED* with Learning Stories

I was baptized in the Methodist Church when I was eight years old. At the time, I received a faux red-leather copy of the Good News Bible. It contained the same books as the King James Version of the Holy Bible, but it was worded a bit differently and branded with a new title to emphasize the neighborly teachings of the historical Jesus Christ. The good news that Jesus shared with us reminds me of the words of another teacher, Raghavan Iyer, who writes, “Life is no cruel burden imposed upon human beings by some capricious external power, but rather a festival in which there is continual learning and living and loving. But these cannot occur without unlearning, unloving, undoing the excess and illusion of the past.” Our institutions of government and religion are corrupted by the excess and illusion created by our repeated efforts to achieve some sort of status in the world of appearances at the expense of those who are voiceless and disregarded. Today and every day we have the opportun...

  I am feeling like there is nothing I can do. I look out my window to the world, and I look at the flowers blooming in our time, and I wonder. Am I able to really see the flowers for what they are, to experience the potential in each bud to release their fragrance? In the words of Bob Dylan,  “For them that must obey authority/ That they do not respect in any degree/ Who despise their jobs, their destinies/ Speak jealously of them that are free/ Cultivate their flowers to be/Nothing more than something they invest in.” I believe there is more to be experienced in the beauty of this spring day than what can be seen with the eyes, or experienced with the senses, but we have to start somewhere. Ask anyone to tell you what is actually happening, and the chances are if something seems to prevent them from living the life they imagine is possible they will give up describing what they actually see at the point where they sense that the world they describe is limited compared to the...