I love this chapter. I see the whole concept from Charleston's Native American tradition. We can all dance to celebrate, pray, and mourn even if we have differing in beliefs. It is through "disorganized religion" rather than dogma we will move forward. Dona, I understand your frustration with people of differing faith traditions, especially Catholic. My anger and frustration with the religion is somewhat removed as I have not practiced as a Catholic in over 20 years. I can know join my collogues in prayer and mass in a prayerful way. I can see their perspectives and enter to conversation with them. My biggest struggle is when they pray for the dignity of all human life, but then ignore, or put down, the LGBTQ+ population and the women of the community.

Charleston says, "To prevent this injustice, we must shire enough light on political systems to make them transparent." (p123). This maybe the "pro-truth" campaign that we need. We talked the day we met about how to make change. Perhaps this is what a group of intelligent, thoughtful people could do- spread truth.

I am available then.

These are deep questions. I appreciate your honesty and candor. It was Charleston's comment on page 76 that stood out to me. "A spiritual community is more like a labor union." Together our community is working together for a common hope from a variety of backgrounds. But I agree with you Dona- how do we come to a common hope? How does one group background impact the hope of others? I am often baffled by how people can see homelessness or hunger and not feel called to help. It will be wonderful to discuss these questions in person. Would anyone be interested in a midpoint meeting? I would be happy to meet for coffee next weekend.

I try very hard to smile unconditionally also. It helps the world feel better for me.

I also appreciated that Charleston acknowledges the realities of life. There are times when we are tired and our hope wains. We need that reminder to return to hope.

Dona, when we met for coffee and planning the book study you mentioned your thoughts on our society not having a shared hope. I have continued to contemplate this idea over the last month. My conclusion is that my "hope" includes the hope of a shared vision of who to treat our neighbors. I have to believe that we all strive for a world that Jesus called for in the Bible. A world where we are all treated the way we want to be treated. A world where we care for the "lesser" in our community. I need to hold this faith and hope in my heart otherwise I would feel overwhelmed with the unfairness of our world.

I am a person who thinks, then over thinks, then writes their thoughts, and then finally shares what they are thinking with others. I like Charleston's thought that we "work out what they think in the process of thinking it." I need to have more confidence in voice. What I have to say and add to a conversation is important. I also have to have faith in others and not assume that they are judging my every word. The book has so many lessons to learn. I believe if I reread these chapter 6 months from now it would teach me different lessons than it is today.

As I reread this chapter I was once again struck by sentences: "The light we climb to is the light of common sense." (p.18) - It reminds me that the spirit is not calling me to be anything extraordinary but just sensible. I have the capacity to climb up to "common sense" even on the toughest of days. "Peace is not free; it comes at the price of entitlement and privilege." (p18)- How do we use our privilege to help other climb out of the kiva and into the light? Later in the chapter, just as my guilt for not doing enough with entitlement was pushing down on me. The climb is put back in perspective on p. 23. "While we are empowered to do more than we can imagine, we are not called to do more than we can." I am thankful that the spirit understands our limits. This was a point of contrast for me. We are called to work for freedom but not to the point of losing ourselves. The manta on p. 34 is a sticky note added to the many on my bathroom mirror. "Don't look down, don't look back, don't look away. Look up and be confident."

This connects me to pg. 12 where he states we are "stronger than darkness". I had a past relationship that took a huge emotional toll, particularly on my self-esteem. It took me many years to pull myself out of that darkness and believe in myself again. This did not happen insolation. It took a community of friends, family, and quality therapist. In the book, Steven says that darkness is banished by a single lit candle. You can use that light to spread to others. Each little spark we share impacts those around us. The most profound quote I took from the introduction was "Your life matters. What you have started will carry on. You are a source of light."

The "darkness" of the kiva also reminded me of the winter. I feel our timing of the reading of the book is perfect. We are moving out of the darkness of winter and into the new light, rebirth of spring.