Sweet strangers among us

This is a time in human history to have ideals. To have ideals about a divided world is not to be naive or to flirt with the future. To have ideals is to cherish perfection, to nourish conviction. It is to acknowledge a vision.

I acknowledge a world of strangers yearning for the hidden nearnesses in them and discovering themselves as the heirs of daybreak. I acknowledge an aristocracy of values broad enough to contain the democracy of prayer, where individuality is not threatened but nurtured through cultural exchange -- yes, through the health of what can be shared between your Christianity and mine: not counterfeited by an amorphous ecumenism, not diseased by absorption with the occult. I acknowledge a kingdom of relationships made real through compassion and respect, a kingdom of relationships cleansed and redeemed through forgiveness and restraint. I honour this kingdom of light. I acknowledge this glistening cosmopolis of the mind in which the resonance of ontology moves warmly beneath the stammering of ideologies. I acknowledge the government of morning where human policies are only shadows between which we step skillfully and noiselessly. I acknowledge the significance of the simplest symbols, like spring leaves on old trees: I mean real communities where young and old together mobilize ideas in common goals, and where preconceptions are dissolved through all the dazzle of heavenly curiosity and cosmic humour. . . .

The kingdom of light is a kingdom of love. The sweet strangers are among us. Friend, love first: don't wait for someone to deserve your caring.

What kind of loving makes forgiving second nature . . .?