vision. hope. driving force.

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world.

"This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And i suppose my happiness could have taken the form in the words: "Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.

"I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

"If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed...I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.

"If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another."-Thomas Merton