We are, and always have been, social creatures, reliant on others for our lives, our development and our survival: humans are not autonomous, isolated entities with no need for relationships with other humans. Love and respect one another.

Are we talking about how we—each of us, in our uniquely constituted beings—recognize and understand and make sense of that unbidden, overwhelming awe at the wonder, magnificence, danger, demand, and delight of being alive?

Well we are the ones who must build the meanings of our brief days out of what we find to be deeply and powerfully important, right here, out of the utterly natural stuff of life. The holy is nothing but the ordinary, held up to the light and profoundly seen. It is the awareness of a creativity and a connection that we do not control, in a universe that is always larger, more intricate, and more astonishing than we imagine. It is the acknowledgment that we are formed by the earth from which we arise, and in which we live and move and have our being; and that we are, finally, not alone. For our very humanity is illuminated for us by our fellow beings, each of whom offers the authentic presence of the divine, the inner light, rational reasoning. JBK2010