Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Individual growth and humanity's evolution

Human societies change.  That is inevitable.  Individual changes - from birth and throughout our lives - are also inevitable and collectively drive societal change.

Many societal and individual changes are wholesome and welcome - from government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" to the invention of amazing, pocket-size research and communication devices.  However, many changes harm progress toward human societies based on truth and law, peace and justice, mutual respect and reasonable balancing of individual rights.  Having an authoritarian government which disregards the laws enacted by citizens' elected representatives, including legal barriers to exercising and increasing unlegislated powers, is not good for that government's people or for humanity as a whole.  

To resist effectively and thwart the individual and group actions which threaten a society's health, that society needs to do more than care.  That society needs to change.

Humanity's wholesome evolution comes ultimately from collective evolution at the cellular level - each person being a cell in the body of humanity.  We - individual members of society - need to change.  We - you and I - need individually to notice and diminish excesses of some natural and powerful human qualities which often act like viruses within families, communities, and the body of humanity: apathy, prejudice, greed, fear, self-righteousness and impulses to violence.  Ceding to others this difficult but liberating work weakens society and leaves us impotent and frustrated.  This is hard work!  But we must do it if we aspire to the values, qualities and practices of individuals on whom humanity depends for progress.  Becoming the best members of humanity we can be will be no accident.

Sunday, January 11, 2026

January 11, 2026

I have been blessed with countless moments of pure joy.  Joy needing nothing to be complete. Joy despite all the travails and injustices of humanity – of Life.  One of those moments came on a woodland hike with a dear friend over a decade ago. I described what I felt this way: “I love how I feel when I am with you.”

As I yearned for such moments before that summary came to me, I have yearned for such moments since.  I think we all do: it’s the joy of being completely alive and free.

Grace gives us unexpected, even transporting “I love how I feel” moments like the one I had with my friend.  (The “when I am with you” circumstance is wonderful, but not necessary.) But I have sought actively to cultivate such moments.

Randomly – or providentially – I recently found and read a copy of a chapter of Thomas Kelly’s 1941 classic A Testament of Devotion entitled “The Eternal Now and Social Concern.”  Reminded there of the "possibility of this experience of the Divine Presence," I realize that I can have “I love how I feel” moments whenever I have the presence of mind to connect as best I can with the Holy Spirit within.