the world and the soul

 "of the Kingdom of Heaven"?

I have the luxury, and the challenge,

of wearing different hats,

different perspectives from which to consider it all,

this week I am called by the history major within me,

who combines with the dutiful son, cousin, nephew,

so I search for the mechanism through which

to see, to appreciate, to chronicle

the worlds of our parents,

plus a bit of the worlds within which we now live,

as we seek to express and to honor

what they hoped for us to be with our lives,

today's reality is driven by the capitalist truth

that the bottom line shouts profit,

of choosing whichever way maximizes growth,

though the "growth" is usually of the material,

and unfortunately not of the spiritual,

for how can "enlightenment" give me a better steak?

our parents were badly burned by the Great Depression,

and the surviving of the psychic and material challenges of it and World War II,

we have a different problem now:

how to save our souls

when our bodies are doing well,

the Bible speak to us now, and hopes for us,

to spend more time on the heart and less on the body,

as Mark cautioned, 

"What profiteth a man to gain the whole world and to lose his soul?"

with my cousin I sought to remember and to honor our parents,

and to let us appreciate how much our souls need to be loved and nurtured,

for, like children, "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

by Henry H. Walker

May 20, ‘26