With apologies to St. Teresa

All is well
And all is well
And all manner of thing is well.

There are moments when the universe and my time and place in it are exactly as they should be, moments of perfection.

And this could be a perpetual condition, except that I go about applying my morality - this is good, that is bad, it's better over there.

To exist in the perfection of the moment, must one be will-less, ambition-less, passive?

To follow one's bliss, to act in the world, does that by default exclude the perfection of the moment.

How does one act in the world and simultaneously be at peace? Are they mutually exclusive? If you act but are not attached to the outcome - but what is the point of action if not the outcome?

"I have a vision of us transformed - courageous, uninhibited people living and loving with reckless abandon."

The hero ventures forth into the unknown, there fabulous forces are encountered, a decisive victory is won, the hero returns to bestow boons on his fellow man.

Jimmy Stewart, It's a Wonderful Life - Is he a hero in the end? Was it simply that his venture into the unknown was not the adventure he originally wanted, his was right there in his boring little bourgeois community?

I know a young man just back from Iraq. A few months ago he was knocking down doors and rushing into buildings with a machine gun, not knowing what was inside. Now he is digging ditches and installing electrical ducts in the ground in Tucson. He told me he misses his life in Iraq.

I always thought my attachment to the trappings of my bourgeois life were what were keeping me from living fully. Elmar helped me realize that was not true.

Who does not fear death, pain, loss, the little deaths we suffer every day?

I understand the Iraq vet. Life is more-better when you confront the fear and move past it.

Is that then the goal, to simply live with fearless intensity? Narcissus and Goldmund lived intensely, but were never whole.

To be at peace.
To follow your bliss.
To act courageously.

Simultaneously.
Sent from my Crackberry. I must be outstanding in the field.