And we began to sing, "Why should I feel discouraged? Why do the shadows fall? "And Ranola watched Ken rather skeptically for a moment, and then her face began to melt and contort like his, and she went to his side and bent down to lift him up — lifted up this white rag doll, this scarecrow. She held him next to her, draped over and against her like a child while they sang. And it pierced me. I can't image anything but music that could have brought about this alchemy. Maybe it's because music is about as physical as it gets: your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We're walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix, it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn't get to any other way.
Spiritual pilgrimage involves solitary searching, receiving help and guidance from others, and offering help to others. It is a journey of deepening willingness and clarifying vision ... a process of reconciling will and spirit. In it, one seeks to find, and realizes with increasing certainty that one has already been found. There is company for each of us in this: of those men and women who have gone before ... of our spiritual guides and those whom we may help guide ... of our own community of faith. There is also the vast company of the rest of our contemporaries on this planet, the great body of sisters and brothers of all races, ages and faiths who seek to know and live in the Way of Ultimate Love ... And in the realm of contemplative quiet, beyond all ideas, beyond our rainbowed images of God and self, beyond belief, we share the same silence. We are rooted all together in the ground of consciousness that is God's gift to us all.