Recently, in fact, just yesterday, a friend, during the course of “a conversation” (you know what I mean, we “talked” textually) about nothing in particular and everything in general, out of the cyber-blue, asked: “If you have one wish to make, what would it be and why?”
Ordinarily, I would pause and ponder long. This time, instantly, words rose from my soul’s depths: “I wish for a restoration of civility and comity in our American political discourse, social deliberations, and racial dialogue. Why? Because, I believe, we Americans, as a nation, across the board, in all phases of our collective life, have regressed into a state of distrust in systems and persons – to the point where we are unable to identify and labor toward the fulfillment of the…any common good.”
“That’s a good one,” she, within seconds, wrote. Then, “Amen. May God grant your wish.”
“Amen,” I wrote.
And, as I pray and pray and pray, so, I say, “Amen and amen and amen.”
© PRA 2022
#Americanunity #onenationunderGod
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 
And I add my own ongoing string of Amens to your wish. As Jean-luc Picard was wont to say: “Let it be so!”
Thank you, Paul.
Love,
Karen
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My dear Karen, holidays, especially national holidays, in light (or, perhaps, better expressed, in the shadow) of our ongoing multivalent strife, are occasions when and where I find it difficult to muster the spirit of celebration. Perhaps, then, it is a blessed thing that such moments, such days as today, largely, are quiet and void of great activity. For this state of tranquility (amidst the surrounding sea of confusion) grants me the opportunity to be still and to seek, more fervently, the God who abides amidst the chaos.
Love
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Speaking of the God who abides amid the chaos, are you by chance a James McBride fan? I just finished – in the throes of a miserable few days of illness I am just emerging from – his novel Deacon King Kong. I can’t tell you when I have felt myself to be the beneficiary of such a gift, from the first word to the last. It is to my mind, a hymn of praise, gratitude, grace, and a lot of laughter and tears (on my part). His autobiographical The Color of Water is likewise, but Deacon King Kong is now my new favorite novel of all time. Such a wonderful book for these times, I thought.
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Ah, my dear Karen, I know of Mr. McBride, but I’ve not yet read any of his works. At your recommendation, I must!
Love
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