A Homily – The Presentation of the Lord (The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time) Year C

First Reading – Malachi 3:1-4

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 23(24):7-10

Second Reading - Hebrews 2:14-18

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 2:32

The Gospel According to Luke – 2:22-40

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 God, the creator of the universe, God is not a lord; God is not a king, God does not come at the head of an army.

 The temple of God is within the human heart, and there is no other.

 Have hope, both for yourself and for all people, knowing that God works within each of us, intending to bring us all through the fire for the refinement of our spirit.

 There is not a single one of God’s children who is exempt from God’s plan…that means all of us.

 Know this.

 All things and persons have their being in God. God is the foundation of all that is. Without God there is nothing, and in nothing there is not even the possibility of something…it is void, nihil, blank.

 If you wish to climb the mountain in order to find God, that is fine, the journey is yours to makes. Or, you might just turn to your neighbor and see God reflected in their face.

 See their face, see it, see them, behold the face of God there, in that holy presence give thanks to the creator for the wonderment of being. 

 Do not worry about your own holiness, how you perceive it, or how you perceive your lack of it. God loved you before the first moment of creation, when only the possibility of you existed.

 Be mindful.

 All things and everyone are loved by God, and insofar as they are loved by God they are holy.

 There is no vanity in emulating the love God bears for all God’s children, you may not be able to love perfectly, but that does not mean you should not try.

 Look for God’s blessing in the service you provide to your neighbor, to your mother and father, to your sister and brother, strive for justification only through the quality of your kindness, and the extent of the mercy you show to others.

 If you go looking for the God of Jacob, instead of seeing God in Jacob you will only be looking at idols. God is not confined to the pages of a book, or the ink on a scroll, neither is God bounded by the history and mythology of a people. Look to these things for glimpses of God, and remembrances of past encounters, but seek the living God in living beings.

 Remember this:

 In our first encounter with God, when the first parent walked with the creator, the world was a garden and that was paradise, there was no talk of kings or the glories of conflict, wars and battle…let us return to that.

 Shun the false narrative and the irrational argument, knowing that the spirit of God is the spirit of truth, and nothing false has a place in God’s house.

 Consider the reading from Paul’s letter today; it is replete with error.

 This is not to say that Paul was dishonest when he wrote his missive, but that his view of the world and his understanding of the nature of reality was fundamentally wrong.

 Know this:

 There is no devil!

 There is no power I the universe other than God, there is no cosmic war against the forces of darkness, everything is as God wills it.

 Jesus came to set us free from the fear of death, to give us the good news of the resurrection, that we continue beyond the grave, but this was not accomplished by magic or alchemy, such as Paul describes here.

 Jesus was not a priest, and we were not saved by his blood; blood offerings have never accomplished anything for anyone.

 Jesus did not atone for our sins through his death; we are accountable for ourselves, but the good news remains…God loves us. God has always loved us, for all the regrettable, even harmful things we have done in our lives, to ourselves and others, we are forgiven…we were forgiven even before we set out on those paths.

 Jesus did not effectuate the atonement, either with his life or his death, he came to proclaim that when God made, and the whole of creation, God made us one; Jesus meant to instill the faith in us that no power can tear us apart.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today, examine the narrative carefully. It is mythology and propaganda, as such it is a deviation from the way, which is always found in the service of truth.

 The Gospel writers gave us narratives concerning the early life of Jesus that are works of fiction, and while their intention was to help spread the good news and they were not acting with malice. Nevertheless, they subverted the real teaching of Jesus and left the burgeoning movement exposed to corruption.

 The writers of Luke’s Gospel ask us to believe this narrative concerning Jesus, they want us to acquiesce to the notion that he obeyed the “law,” following the forms of ritual and blood sacrifice that were proscribed in the books of his ancestors, ostensibly lending credibility to their claims of Jesus’ holiness, to the notion that he fulfilled all the ancient requirements, they set aside the realities of the prophetic tradition that Jesus stood in, a tradition that prefers acts of mercy over animal sacrifices.

 Jesus taught that the way was to be found in service; service to God through the service we provide to one another, and not in the fulfillment of corrupt rituals, blood-magic and service to the temple.

 Jesus was not a magician, he was not a supernatural being. He was an ordinary man, who led an extraordinary life, and was killed because of greed, jealousy and fear.

 Jesus only merited the status of Christ insofar as led a life of service, which he did. He served his people to the bitter end, all the way to his death on the cross, but it was not the cross or the blood he shed on it that were of salvific value, it was the heart of service which led him there.

 We are all Christ, baptized or not, insofar as we follow the way which he exemplified.

 The mythologization of Jesus was a subversion of the way insofar as it suggested that the ordinary service Jesus called us to, the service he exemplified, came from a place of supernatural power, and the authors of this script did not stop there. The narrative also mythologizes people such as: Anna, and Simeon; ascribing to them extraordinary powers of insight beyond the scope of normal people, allowing for a continued separation of the ordinary believer from those who live their lives in the church or temple, the separation between clergy and layperson, which is another betrayal of the way.

First Reading – Malachi 3:1-4

The Lord You are Seeking Will Suddenly Enter His Temple

The Lord God says this: Look, I am going to send my messenger to prepare a way before me. And the Lord you are seeking will suddenly enter his Temple; and the angel of the covenant whom you are longing for, yes, he is coming, says the Lord of Hosts. Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ alkali. He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and then they will make the offering to the Lord as it should be made. The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be welcomed by the Lord as in former days, as in the years of old.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 23(24):7-10

The Lord Comes to His Temple

The man with clean hands and pure heart will climb the mountain of the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia!

The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness,

  the world and all who live in it.

He himself founded it upon the seas

  and set it firm over the waters.

Who will climb the mountain of the Lord?

  Who will stand in his holy place?

The one who is innocent of wrongdoing and pure of heart,

  who has not given himself to vanities or sworn falsely.

He will receive the blessing of the Lord

  and be justified by God his saviour.

This is the way of those who seek him,

  seek the face of the God of Jacob.

Gates, raise your heads. Stand up, eternal doors,

  and let the king of glory enter.

Who is the king of glory?

The Lord of might and power.

  The Lord, strong in battle.

Gates, raise your heads. Stand up, eternal doors,

  and let the king of glory enter.

Who is the king of glory?

The Lord of hosts

 – he is the king of glory.

Amen

The man with clean hands and pure heart will climb the mountain of the Lord.

Alleluia!

 

Second Reading - Hebrews 2:14-18

He Took to Himself Descent from Abraham

Since all the children share the same blood and flesh, Christ too shared equally in it, so that by his death he could take away all the power of the devil, who had power over death, and set free all those who had been held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. For it was not the angels that he took to himself; he took to himself descent from Abraham. It was essential that he should in this way become completely like his brothers so that he could be a compassionate and trustworthy high priest of God’s religion, able to atone for human sins. That is, because he has himself been through temptation he is able to help others who are tempted.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 2:32

Alleluia, alleluia!

The light to enlighten the Gentiles and give glory to Israel, your people.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke – 2:22-40

My Eyes Have Seen your Salvation

When the day came for them to be purified as laid down by the Law of Moses, the parents of Jesus took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, – observing what stands written in the Law of the Lord: Every first-born male must be consecrated to the Lord – and also to offer in sacrifice, in accordance with what is said in the Law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.

  Now in Jerusalem there was a man named Simeon. He was an upright and devout man; he looked forward to Israel’s comforting and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had set eyes on the Christ of the Lord. Prompted by the Spirit he came to the Temple and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the Law required, he took him into his arms and blessed God; and he said:

‘Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace, just as you promised; because my eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared for all the nations to see, a light to enlighten the pagans and the glory of your people Israel.’

As the child’s father and mother stood there wondering at the things that were being said about him, Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘You see this child: he is destined for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, destined to be a sign that is rejected – and a sword will pierce your own soul too – so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare.’

  There was a prophetess also, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was well on in years. Her days of girlhood over, she had been married for seven years before becoming a widow. She was now eighty-four years old and never left the Temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayer. She came by just at that moment and began to praise God; and she spoke of the child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem.

  When they had done everything the Law of the Lord required, they went back to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. Meanwhile the child grew to maturity, and he was filled with wisdom; and God’s favour was with him.

 

A Homily – The Presentation of the Lord (The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time) Year C

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Patron Saint of Philosophy, Angelic Doctor of the Church

When I finally made it to university, I went to a school named for Saint Thomas Aquinas in Saint Paul, Minnesota; I studied philosophy, theology and the classics too.

The University of St. Thomas was a grand place; it felt like a university, with its stately buildings made from massive blacks of the blonde-sandstone quarried from the bluffs along the Mississippi.

The moment I passed through the arches, walking into the quad, I felt like I had arrived.

Looking back, I have to say that my time at St. Thomas was reasonably well spent; my studies adequately prepared me for advanced studies elsewhere (though barely); I continued my research in theology when I had graduated from there.

My work thus far has been in the philosophy and history of Christian soteriology. It is not as exhaustive as our Patron Saint’s achievement with his Summa Theologica (thus far), which remains a unique accomplishment in the history of Western thought. Nevertheless, my work is ongoing, and may one day surpass his mark.

The Summa, it should be noted, is more important for the mode of thinking St. Thomas  transmitted his ideas in, than for the conclusions he presented in its pages. His revolutionary mind was ultimately constrained by a careful, cautious and conservative approach to theology that made him a defender of Church’s errors, rather than a reformer.

Regardless, St. Thomas successfully bridged the gap between the ancient philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle et al, and the proto-renaissance period of Western Europe, re-discovering the use of intellectual tools such as formal logic and discursive reasoning, tools which came to him from the Jewish scholar Maimonides, and the Muslim scholar Averroes, he re-employed them in a way that allowed Europeans to leave the Dark Ages, clearing a path for the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason that followed.

Saint Thomas died on March 7^th, 1274.

In 1969 the Church moved the day we celebrate his feast to January 28^th, therefore we celebrate his sainthood today.

Thomas Aquinas was Italian by birth and a member of the Dominican order; he is counted among the “scholastics,” and he was famous in his day.

He died while making a pilgrimage along the Appian Way; death took him at the Cistercian Abbey of Fossanova, and the monks there, fully cognizant of his fame, knowing that he would become a saint of great renown, coveted the relics of his body (in the spirit of the age).

His hosts boiled his carcass down to the bones, and then polished those to preserve them in good order. They kept all the water from the cauldron they dissolved his body in, for distribution in the relic-trade. For years they refused to turn his remains over to his Dominican brothers, parceling out his bones and the water they had recovered, bit by bit, keeping his skull until the very end.

The University of Saint Thomas has a vial of that water in its collection of sacred artifacts, a silly business, really, and beneath the dignity of the intellectual giant that Aquinas was known to be.

On his death bed it is reported that he gave an estimation of the value of his own contribution to the doctrine and dogma of the church, of which he said: everything is straw.

There is a prayer that St. Thomas wrote, it is carved into a column of the main entrance to the school grounds at the University in St. Paul, the same arches that I walked through my first day on campus, two stories below the offices of the Philosophy Department (which I belonged to). I recited that prayer aloud every day I attended classes.

It is a prayer that I carry with me still, as if it were written in my heart:

Grant, O Merciful God

That I may ardently desire,

Prudently examine,

Truthfully acknowledge,

And perfectly accomplish

What is pleasing to thee

For the praise and glory

Of thy name

 

In the year 2025 CE, seven hundred and fifty-one years after the death of St. Thomas, the world has become lost in another kind of dark ages, which is odd and sadly ironic because the current tide of anti-rational, anti-intellectual sentiment that has taken its grip on us has been seeded through the prevalence of digital media platforms that are in themselves a function of our mastery of light as a means of communication.

There is some irony here.

We now find ourselves living in a milieu that disdains the truth, scientia…science and knowledge, serving to undermine the roll of reason in public discourse.

It is saddening.

In Western Europe the so-called dark ages are considered to have begun around the year 500 CE, with the reign of the emperor Justinian who insisted on a homogenous culture throughout the empire. He demanded that all Roman citizens become Christian or leave; tens of thousands of artisans, merchants, traders and teachers did just that…they left.

The Justinian expulsions took place roughly seven hundred and fifty years after the golden age of the philosophers, and roughly seven hundred and fifty years before St. Thomas wrote his Summa.

Let me be clear, I am not suggesting that there is anything inherently ominous in the pattern of years I have articulated, the numbers themselves are arbitrary and it would be unreasonable to suppose otherwise. However, we would be wise to acknowledge the trend, the descent of darkness has a cycle of its own. We have fallen into this before and we are susceptible to do so again…this is what it means to be human, and by coincidence roughly 750 years have passed since the Summa was penned.

Once we have fallen it could take centuries to find the light again, and we are teetering on the brink of disaster right now.

 The overall fragility of our situation, our sitz im leben, or setting in life, brings to mind St. Thomas’s final words when reflecting of the body of his work…it is all straw, he said, nothing but straw.

 Everything we have built since the St. Thomas paved the way for the enlightenment, including liberal-democracy, including the acknowledgement of and acquiescence to human rights, could blow away with the wind, or burn up in a flash.

 Reason save us! 

 

A Homily – The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

First Reading - Nehemiah 8:2-6,8-10 ©

Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 18(19):8-10,15 ©

Second Reading - 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 ©

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 4:18

The Gospel According to Luke – 1:1-4,4:14-21 ©

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 It is virtually impossible to filter the propaganda in today’s reading from what is true and good, but it must be done; if you want to follow Jesus you will attempt to do this every time you open the book.

 The reading today from the prophet Nehemiah presents and an example of this challenge, beginning with a long segment extolling the virtue of reading from the law and listening to the sacred text, as if God’s own self were present in them, and yet these laws are the dictates of men, written by and large to advance their own ambitions; they cannot be trusted neither can their words be received without scrutiny.

 Know this!

 God is not present in the scriptures; this may sound like blasphemy, but it is true. The sacred texts are as dead as any idol made of wood, stone or metal. Neither is God present in the liturgy, in the bowing and scraping and the obsequious praising of the mass.

 God is present in the assembly, in the people both inside and outside the church. God is present in everyone, and the spirit is active in direct proportion to our collective-desires: to love the truth, be humble, do good and serve justice.

 The fulfillment of the law resides here, and it is only clear at the very end of the reading from Nehemiah, when the prophet orders the people to go out and share a part of their feast to those who were not able to prepare a feast for themselves.

 Remember.

 God is the creator of all that is, the entire universe, and we in it.   

 All of the things which we imagine make us different from one another, the things which we hold in hearts and minds that divide us one from another, these are illusions born of fear, which leads to a lack of trust in our neighbors, in ourselves and in God.

 Take away from the apostle’s words today:

 The God of Jesus Christ, is the God of all people.

 We are united to God symbolically in our baptism and ontologically insofar as we are created in the divine image. Baptism is a rite which ties us to each other in a symbolic way, it binds us to the life of Jesus and his death through ritual; the ritual is a reflection of our actual unity, a unity that prefigures creation, it reflects the essential oneness we have with God at the core of our being, a oneness which belongs to us from eternity.

 The body of the church is not the Catholic church in communion with the Bishop of Rome, or with the Orthodox Church or any other single group of Christians. The body of the church is greater than the entire number of self-professed Christians, including all other people of faith; protestant, non-denominational, what have you.

 The true church encompasses the whole of humanity, everyone in existence now, everyone who has ever been and everyone who will ever be. God has made us a singular people, both here on Earth and throughout the universe. We are one body, all God’s children, throughout the universe and everywhere.

 Remember this when you reflect on the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Something happened in Palestine, in old Judea, two-thousand years ago a movement began in Galilee and spread across the world.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today.

 Luke was a physician and a follower of Paul. Together Luke and Paul brought the “good news” to the Jews of the diaspora, and gentiles as well. They preached, they raised hope, they built trust and they poured out a ministry of love in their attempt to fashion a blue print for a community that was not of this earth; in it was the promise of salvation…salvation and wellbeing.

 Know this.

 Luke’s Gospel was not written by a man named Luke, it was written by the community he formed, it was written decades after his passing, and it was not dedicated to a man named Theophilus but to all of God’s children…everywhere.

 This passage tells us of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth; a Jewish man who taught in synagogues, just as his followers would do in later years. Jesus, like Paul was a Jew of the diaspora. People called him Rabbi, which marks him as a Pharisee, a student and teacher of the law.

 Jesus taught in the prophetic tradition, like John the Baptist who immediately preceded him. He exhorted people to take action, he performed works of good service, and he told the truth as if it had descended on him like the Spirit of God.

 Be mindful.

 Any of us who has volunteered to carry the mantle of Christ must adhere closely to the central point of this reading:

 The work of the Christian is to bring good news to the poor; to proclaim liberty to the captives, to restore sight to the blind and to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the jubilee (a year of favor and the forgiveness of debts); This work is never done, even though it is accomplished every day. It is work that never ends, not as long as human beings walk the Earth.

 As long as the world endures, these truths will need to be proclaimed, the year of God’s favor, the jubilee is a that year never ends; it is God’s year, divine time, stretching into eternity.

 If you envision yourself as a servant of God, then you must be a servant of the people; there is no other way to serve God other than serving the people…let your service be joyful and full of hope.

 If you are going to proclaim liberty to the captives, you must work to set people free.

 In the time of Christ the captives he spoke of were the populations of people who had been taken from their homes as the spoils of war, and those imprisoned anywhere.

 The Romans called captive peoples servi, or servus meaning servant, meaning slave.

The slave economy of the ancient world does not look the same today as it did then, but there are hundreds of millions of people living in servitude right now, living without rights, without recourse to the law.

 If you follow in the footsteps of Jesus, you must call for justice, and the freeing of these people. You must restore sight to the blind, which is to say you must convince the rulers of the world and their armies, all the powers that be, you must convince them that there are other ways to peace and security than hoarding wealth and protecting it at the point of the sword or the barrel of a gun. We must convince them to relinquish their power, to give up their wealth in order to foster justice for all…economic justice is the beginning, the work of justice must start there.

 This is the take away from the Gospel today.

 

First Reading - Nehemiah 8:2-6,8-10 ©

All the People Listened Attentively to the Book of the Law

Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, consisting of men, women, and children old enough to understand. This was the first day of the seventh month. On the square before the Water Gate, in the presence of the men and women, and children old enough to understand, he read from the book from early morning till noon; all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.

Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden dais erected for the purpose. In full view of all the people – since he stood higher than all the people – Ezra opened the book; and when he opened it all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people raised their hands and answered, ‘Amen! Amen!’; then they bowed down and, face to the ground, prostrated themselves before the Lord. And Ezra read from the Law of God, translating and giving the sense, so that the people understood what was read.

Then Nehemiah – His Excellency – and Ezra, priest and scribe and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all the people, ‘This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not be mournful, do not weep.’ For the people were all in tears as they listened to the words of the Law.

He then said, ‘Go, eat the fat, drink the sweet wine, and send a portion to the man who has nothing prepared ready. For this day is sacred to our Lord. Do not be sad: the joy of the Lord is your stronghold.’

 

Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 18(19):8-10,15 ©

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life.

Alleluia, alleluia!

The law of the Lord is perfect,

  it revives the soul.

The rule of the Lord is to be trusted,

  it gives wisdom to the simple.

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life.

The precepts of the Lord are right,

  they gladden the heart.

The command of the Lord is clear,

  it gives light to the eyes.

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life.

The fear of the Lord is holy,

  abiding for ever.

The decrees of the Lord are truth

  and all of them just.

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life.

May the spoken words of my mouth,

  the thoughts of my heart,

win favour in your sight, O Lord,

  my rescuer, my rock!

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life.

Alleluia!

 

Second Reading - 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 ©

You Together are Christ's body, but Each a Different Part of It

Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink.

Nor is the body to be identified with any one of its many parts. If the foot were to say, ‘I am not a hand and so I do not belong to the body’, would that mean that it stopped being part of the body? If the ear were to say, ‘I am not an eye, and so I do not belong to the body’, would that mean that it was not a part of the body? If your whole body was just one eye, how would you hear anything? If it was just one ear, how would you smell anything?

Instead of that, God put all the separate parts into the body on purpose. If all the parts were the same, how could it be a body? As it is, the parts are many but the body is one. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you’, nor can the head say to the feet, ‘I do not need you.’

What is more, it is precisely the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones; and it is the least honourable parts of the body that we clothe with the greatest care. So our more improper parts get decorated in a way that our more proper parts do not need. God has arranged the body so that more dignity is given to the parts which are without it, and that there may not be disagreements inside the body, but that each part may be equally concerned for all the others. If one part is hurt, all parts are hurt with it. If one part is given special honour, all parts enjoy it.

Now you together are Christ’s body; but each of you is a different part of it. In the Church, God has given the first place to apostles, the second to prophets, the third to teachers; after them, miracles, and after them the gift of healing; helpers, good leaders, those with many languages. Are all of them apostles, or all of them prophets, or all of them teachers? Do they all have the gift of miracles, or all have the gift of healing? Do all speak strange languages, and all interpret them?

 

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 4:18

Alleluia, alleluia!

The Lord has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke – 1:1-4,4:14-21 ©

'This Text is Being Fulfilled Today Even as You Listen'

Seeing that many others have undertaken to draw up accounts of the events that have taken place among us, exactly as these were handed down to us by those who from the outset were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, I in my turn, after carefully going over the whole story from the beginning, have decided to write an ordered account for you, Theophilus, so that your Excellency may learn how well founded the teaching is that you have received.

 Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in him, returned to Galilee; and his reputation spread throughout the countryside. He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised him.

He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me.

He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives

and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.

He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to speak to them, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’

 

A Homily – The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Ursula K. Le Guin – Author, Hero

It has been seven years since this great thinker moved on to the next world; she was a hero of mine.

The first book of hers I ever read was her novella titled: The Lathe of Heaven. The genre was science-fiction, but the book was so much more. Through this brief masterpiece the author spoke to me about the nature of reality, the function of consciousness, of what it means to be human.

She took the title for this book from the writings of the Taoist, Chuang Tzu (book 23, paragraph 7), which says:

~ To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do so will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven ~

Her book dramatized this sentiment and recapitulated this warning, the consideration of which took me outside of myself and allowed me to see the world…the whole of it, in an entirely different way.

I was fifteen years old at the time, and without realizing it I found that I had been introduced to Taoism (the esoteric tradition), which provided me with a perspective that would subsequently shape the future-history of my life.

Later, when I was in the Navy I found comfort in the Earthsea Chronicles, a series of four short novels in the fantasy genre, complete with wizards and dragons. In book one of this series A Wizard of Earthsea, she introduces a hero named Sparrowhawk, whose greatest enemy is himself, and forces him to address the existential dilemma expressed in the question: 

How do we live with ourselves? 

Sparrowhawk’s enemy is not exactly himself, rather it is the shadow of the specter of guilt which he carries, a shadow that most if not all human beings carry, due to our inability to ask for and accept forgiveness for the things we have done that have hurt or harmed those near to us, in some cases…even our adversaries. 

This shadow is relentless, on account of the fact that we are not able to forgive ourselves.

The Earthsea Chronicles are written simply, and so brief that they can be engaged as fairytales, they can be read to children (which is why I found them comforting…I think). Yet, her writing is so masterful that adults may also find them engaging. They communicate a depth of insight into the human condition that lies just below the surface of the narrative.  

Seven years ago this luminary departed from our world, leaving a legacy of literature to light the way for us...we need this light more than ever.

If we liken our civilization to a garden, the garden we live in has been long under shadow; the fruit of our progress has been wilting on the vine, fellowship and common purpose have suffered accordingly. Such themes of discontent are the ideas that she explores in her collection on the Hainish cycle, beginning with the fifth book in the series, The Dispossessed.

Read it!

We need heroes and teachers like Ursula K. Le Guin to light the way for us, to guide us into the cloud of unknowing…I miss her.