We saw our good life not as a model for others, but as a pilgrimage, for us, to the best way we could conceive of living. We felt a glad responsibility in joining with the stream of onward life, with the whole magnificent enterprise. This was living a life of affirmation, of contribution, of making every act and every day purposeful. To live the good life, we found, was to do the best we were capable of in any set of circumstances.
~ from LOVING AND LEAVING THE GOOD LIFE by Helen Nearing
PEACE is very meaning of the word Islam. When its three operative consonants, S, L, and M, are combined with a variety of vowels, they spell "peace" across the whole spectrum of human speech. SALEM is the word for peace in English. SHALOM means peace in Hebrew, while SALAAH is peace in Arabic. (In the native language of Gandhi, the word for peace is SHANTI). Peace is a longing that connects the human family in a common depth of soul. The hope for peace surges in the collective unconscious. It is for the generations now living to bring this hope to consciousness and build the structures that will give it operative vitality.
