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Be like water . . .

At this crtical juncture in our American story, we find ourselves facing monumental consequences for our children, their children, and life as we know it today.


Tearing down a society does not require leadership anymore than clear-cutting a forest for the sake of replacing what has existed for centuries. Who doesn't know how to do that? Get yourself a large bulldozer and off you go. In essence and fact, this is happening before our very eyes: "Now you see it; now you don't" as systems succumb to the bulldozer of autocracy without regard or respect for what actually makes America "Great"!


There is a difference between the words "great and first". Great means "above average" as in your kid getting the best report card because she/he/they is "above the average" within the class. Kudos! The word "first" means "preceding others" as in your kid cutting to the front of the line before all the other kids. Boo!


As the world watches bullies in the playground of these United States of America, the difference is obvious between making America "Great" and intending to cut to the front of the line, no matter who or what has been standing for centuries, be it a shared borderline, or a sovereign Constitution. It is not a pretty sight to watch any more than seeing hundreds of felled trees their root systems exposed, intentionally left to die. Die they do. Replacing a two-hundred year-old living and breathing thing whether trees or countries, will take another two-hundred years of growing pains just to recover from the self-imposed destruction. That's where we are in 2025, believe it or not.


Our homeland is somewhere in-between autonomy and autocracy. Autonomy means "the right or condition of self-government". The word autocracy means "a system of government by one person with absolute power". This is basic fifth-grade civics that every American who went to public or private school learned is our foundational understanding of the country in which we live. While we were not all "great" students, we were all taught the right and wrong of being a bully pushing out whatever or whomever to be "first" regardless of others. Bullies were punished by the principal to teach that fundamental difference between being "Great" and being "First": Striving for great will never hurt others, and will enhance oneself. Pushing to be first, destroys others, and harms oneself . . . greatly!


We are an autonomous society under pressure by an autocratic faction. Autonomy was granted to all free citizens who with hand over heart pledged an allegiance to one country, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That has not changed. That is a pledge that cannot be taken back. It is our pledge of freedom.


This freedom is worth protecting for it is our future. The cavalry is not coming to save us. Leaders are not rising up to guide us. It is up to each of us for all the individual and collective reasons we can think of to speak up, speak out, stand up, but never to give up. Be like water, find a way. We must.




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© 2023 by Marie Laure

​Six Stages of Pilgrimage:

  • The Call:

  • The opening clarion of any spiritual journey. Often in the form of a feeling or some vague yearning, a fundamental human desire: finding meaning in an overscheduled world somehow requires leaving behind our daily obligations. Sameness is the enemy of spirituality.

  • The Separation:

  • Pilgrimage, by its very nature, undoes certainty. It rejects the safe and familiar. It asserts that one is freer when one frees oneself from daily obligations of family, work, and community, but also the obligations of science, reason, and technology.

  • The Journey:

  • The backbone of a sacred journey is the pain and sacrifice of the journey itself.  This personal sacrifice enhances the experience; it also elevates the sense of community one develops along the way.

  • The Contemplation:

  • Some pilgrimages go the direct route, right to the center of the holy of holies, directly to the heart of the matter. Others take a more indirect route, circling around the outside of the sacred place, transforming the physical journey into a spiritual path of contemplation like walking a labyrinth.

  • The Encounter:

  • After all the toil and trouble, after all the sunburn and swelling and blisters, after all the anticipation and expectation comes the approach, the sighting. The encounter is the climax of the journey, the moment when the traveler attempts to slide through a thin veil where humans live in concert with the Creator.

  • The Completion and Return:

  • At the culmination of the journey, the pilgrim returns home only to discover that meaning they sought lies in the familiar of one's own world. "Seeing the place for the first time . . ."

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