024-01 — WALKING WITH CHRIST AGAIN
From Personal Awakening to Humanity’s Calling
WITNESS TO CALLING — October 13, 2026
A Conscious Return to the World — Guided by the Holy Spirit, Grounded in Reality, and Committed to the Awakening of Christ Consciousness for World Peace
There are moments in a person’s life when the experiences of many years begin to come together, when things that once seemed separate reveal a relationship that had not previously been understood. I believe I am experiencing such a moment in my own life. It is not that I have suddenly discovered something entirely new. Rather, I am beginning to recognize, with greater clarity, what has been developing within me since the time I was first born again and experienced the awakening of my spiritual consciousness. I feel as though I am walking with Christ again. But there is an important difference. I am no longer the same man who first began that journey. I have lived through decades of family relationships, love, work, business enterprises, personal struggles, professional responsibilities, and an ongoing education in the realities of the world. Through those experiences, I have come to understand more deeply the teachings of Christ and the responsibilities they place upon the individual. I now feel prepared to return consciously to the world, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, with a developing understanding that my calling reaches beyond my personal spiritual life into the larger relationships, institutions, nations, and civilizations through which humanity is creating its future.
When I first experienced being born again, there was a profound change in my consciousness. I began to understand my relationship with Christ in a way that was personal, intimate, and deeply meaningful. The teachings of Jesus were no longer simply words preserved in Scripture or lessons taught through religious institutions. They began to speak directly to my own life. Love, compassion, forgiveness, humility, truth, and responsibility became more than moral concepts. They became principles by which I wanted to live. I felt that I was walking with Christ, learning from Him, seeking His guidance, and discovering a spiritual dimension of life that I had not previously understood in the same way. Yet I could not have known then how much more I still needed to learn. My awakening was the beginning of a journey, not its completion. There were realities of human life, society, economics, politics, technology, and international affairs that I had yet to experience and understand. There were relationships that would shape me, responsibilities that would challenge me, and events that would force me to examine the difference between the ideals we profess and the actions through which those ideals become real.
Looking back, I can now see those intervening years as a long education of the spirit. My family, the people I loved, the memory of Pop and Margie, the experiences of building businesses, the individuals who entered my life, and the places that became important to me all contributed to that education. Some experiences brought joy, others disappointment. Some revealed extraordinary generosity and courage, while others demonstrated how easily human beings can become absorbed in their own interests and lose sight of their responsibilities to one another. Through it all, I continued to question, to read, to reflect, and to seek a deeper understanding of the relationship between spiritual consciousness and the actual conditions of human existence. I was discovering that the development of the individual cannot be separated from the relationships and circumstances in which that individual lives. We are influenced by our families, our communities, our occupations, our nations, and the ideas that shape our civilization. Yet we are also capable of influencing those very conditions through the choices we make and the responsibilities we accept.
As I reflect more deeply upon that first born-again experience, I recognize something that I had not previously understood with the clarity I have today. In the beginning, my relationship with Christ was formed largely through a profound compassion for the world and the people within it. I believe it was through the grace of the Holy Spirit that my mind was enlightened and my consciousness raised to recognize a spiritual reality that had always been present but that I had not yet learned to understand. That awakening led me to Scripture, to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, and to a new experience of love. I did not possess a developed philosophy of civilization. I did not yet understand the complex relationships among economics, governments, institutions, nations, and the forces that shape the world. What I possessed was something more immediate and personal. I felt a love being awakened within my heart, a compassion that seemed to direct my attention toward certain people, places, and responsibilities. I was learning to follow that love, often without fully understanding where it would lead or what it was preparing me to become.
There was my love of Scripture, through which I sought to understand the life of Christ and the meaning of His teachings. There was my love for the Blessed Mother, whose place in the Christian story deepened my appreciation for the tenderness, devotion, and human relationships surrounding the life of Jesus. There were people who entered my life and drew me toward experiences I might otherwise never have encountered. I remember Paul Bonnet Cosa, associated with the Westinghouse alarm systems work, and the affection and interest that connected my life with people involved in the very professional world in which I would later develop my own abilities. At the time, I did not see these relationships as parts of some larger educational process. They were simply people and experiences toward whom I felt drawn. Yet now, looking back, I can recognize how even those early relationships contributed to the development of the man I would become.
There was another experience following my born-again awakening that profoundly changed my understanding of love, and that was my relationship with my own mother. I had always loved my mother, but through my developing relationship with Christ and what I experienced as the grace of the Holy Spirit, that love began to take on an entirely different character. I experienced what I understood to be a visitation by the Blessed Mother Mary. She appeared to me bearing the face of my own mother, yet surrounded by a magnificent radiant body, a light that I can only describe as the brilliance of a thousand suns. Within that extraordinary spiritual experience, I understood her message to be unmistakable: I was to respect my mother.
What followed was a transformation in the way I understood and loved her. I began to recognize something that had not previously entered my consciousness in quite the same way. My mother, whom I had always known as the person who brought me into the world, was herself a child. She was a child of God, a human being who had her own needs, vulnerabilities, experiences, hopes, and need for love. And as I came to understand the Blessed Mother as my spiritual mother, something remarkable happened within my heart. I began to love my own mother with the tenderness, protectiveness, and affection that I might give to my own little child. She became my Jeenie. I could look upon her not merely through the ordinary relationship between a son and his mother, but through a love that embraced her humanity, her innocence, and the preciousness of her individual life.
There was something else that I took away from that experience, something that would become important to my developing understanding of Christ and the human condition. I came to believe that there was no devil, no separate supernatural force of evil occupying this planet and controlling the destiny of humanity. This was my spiritual conclusion from an experience that had awakened within me such extraordinary love. I began to look upon the struggles and wrongdoing of humanity differently. Rather than surrendering our understanding of human suffering and evil to the supposed power of an external spiritual enemy, I felt drawn toward the responsibility of human consciousness itself—toward understanding how fear, ignorance, selfishness, hatred, and the absence of compassion can lead human beings away from love. And if love could be awakened within the individual, as I believed it had been awakened within me, then perhaps the development of human consciousness held greater possibilities for transforming the world than I had previously imagined.
As the years passed, I came to recognize an even more troubling possibility concerning humanity’s belief in evil. What happens when people come to believe that the Devil, or some supreme supernatural evil, is present within other human beings, other religions, other societies, or other nations? What happens when they project that image of evil upon their neighbors or upon people whose beliefs, customs, or interests differ from their own? Once another human being is no longer regarded as a person possessing dignity, conscience, and the capacity for goodness, but instead is imagined to be the embodiment of evil itself, something dangerous can happen within human consciousness. People may begin to believe that destroying that person, that community, or even that nation is an act of righteousness. They may convince themselves that hatred is justified because they are defending goodness, and that killing is justified because they are destroying evil.
I began to see a terrible contradiction in this way of thinking. Human beings can commit acts of great evil precisely because they have convinced themselves that they are fighting evil. In the name of God, goodness, righteousness, religion, national destiny, or the protection of civilization, they can come to justify cruelty, persecution, and war. The very belief that they are carrying out a noble mission can prevent them from recognizing the suffering they are causing. I do not mean that every person who believes in the Devil becomes violent, or that religious beliefs necessarily lead to conflict. Many people understand such beliefs in ways that strengthen their personal resistance to wrongdoing. My concern is with the projection of supernatural evil onto other human beings and the conviction that those people must therefore be destroyed. To me, the moral evil lies in the dehumanization, hatred, and violence that such a belief can be used to excuse.
And so my understanding of Christ became increasingly connected to a fundamental principle: we must learn to confront wrongdoing without surrendering our recognition of the humanity of those who commit it. Love does not require us to approve of injustice, cruelty, aggression, or violence. It does not eliminate the responsibility to protect the innocent or establish institutions capable of restraining destructive conduct. But it requires us to distinguish between condemning an action and declaring an entire human being, people, religion, or nation to be the embodiment of evil. It calls us to seek justice without allowing hatred to become the governing principle of our own consciousness. I believe this distinction is essential if humanity is ever to overcome the recurring tragedy in which people kill one another while each side believes it is acting in the name of goodness.
The Blessed Mother, my own mother, and my relationship with Christ had become connected within my heart in a way that I would carry throughout my life. I was beginning to understand that love could transform the very meaning of our relationships. The people closest to us were not simply defined by the roles they occupied in our lives. They were individual human beings, each deserving of dignity, tenderness, patience, forgiveness, and care. I believe that this experience helped prepare me for the many relationships that followed, especially my love for the children, my care for Pop and Margie, and the growing recognition that compassion must become the foundation of our responsibility toward the entire human family.
It was love for my aging grandmother that drew me toward Florida. I wanted to be near her, to share time with her, and to participate in her life as she grew older. It was compassion for the poor, and a desire to understand something of the lives of people whose circumstances were so different from my own, that moved me to work in the migrant farm camps. There I encountered human needs that could not be understood merely through ideas or theories. Poverty had faces. Hardship belonged to real families. Human dignity had to be recognized in individuals whose labor and daily struggles were often invisible to the larger society. My love and concern for those people brought me into direct contact with realities that would later help shape my understanding of economics, justice, and the responsibilities of society toward those who contribute their labor to its development.
And then there were those family tables in Florida, surrounded by my aunt, my uncle, and my grandmother. I can still recognize how much those occasions meant to me. The conversations, the meals, the affection, and the simple experience of belonging together were part of my spiritual education. At those tables, I was learning that love does not exist merely as an abstract teaching. It becomes visible through the time people give one another, the welcome they extend, the memories they create, and the care that binds generations together. Those experiences helped me grow. I was beginning to discover that the family is one of the first places where the teachings of Christ can become living realities. The family table was not simply a place to eat. It was a place where human consciousness was being formed through relationships of love.
It was love of my country that drew me toward Washington, D.C., and toward a deeper interest in the institutions and history of the nation. It was that same love of country that later drew me toward West Point, where the traditions of military service, leadership, responsibility, and national purpose became part of my continuing education. I remember also an experience involving taking down the flag on my way home, an act that remains connected in my mind with my affection for the country and what that flag represented to me. These experiences were not separate from my spiritual development. They were helping me recognize that love can extend beyond the family to a larger community of people whom we may never personally know, but with whom we share a national life and responsibility for the future.
Love also carried me across the country through personal relationships. It was my love for Paula that drew me to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was love for Pascal that again brought me toward New Mexico. Each journey involved particular circumstances and particular people, yet the underlying movement was familiar. I was responding to affection, attachment, and the desire to be present in the lives of others. I was not studying the development of consciousness in some detached philosophical manner. I was living through the experiences that would eventually help me understand it. My relationships were directing my movements, introducing me to different environments, and placing me in circumstances where I would continue to learn about myself and the human condition.
It was love for my family that repeatedly drew me back to New York. When my father became unwell, my love for him brought me home again. I wanted to be there, to help care for him, and to do whatever I could to contribute to his recovery and well-being. I experienced that period through my faith and with gratitude for what I understood as the blessings of Christ. I wanted my father to know that he was loved and that he did not have to face his difficulties alone. Looking back, I can see how those responsibilities taught me something about the relationship between love and service. Compassion sometimes requires us to interrupt our own plans and go where another person needs us. It requires presence, patience, and the willingness to accept burdens that may not have been part of the future we imagined for ourselves.
My love of justice also became part of this education, particularly through the painful experience of being incarcerated while maintaining that I was innocent and pleading not guilty. That experience confronted me with the realities of authority, law, personal conscience, and the consequences of standing upon one’s understanding of the truth. It was not an experience I would have chosen for its suffering. Yet my conviction that I must not admit guilt for something I believed I had not done was rooted in a commitment to truth and justice. Such experiences can change the way a person understands institutions. They reveal how important it is that authority be exercised with fairness, that individuals retain their dignity, and that justice be more than a principle written in law. It must also be practiced in the treatment of human beings.
Throughout those years, Scripture continued to nourish my spiritual life. And there was another influence that became especially meaningful: the singing of the Benedictine monks of Weston Priory in Vermont. The beauty of their voices, the words of their songs, and the sense of prayerful community expressed through their music touched something within me. Their singing eventually drew me toward the priory itself, where I could experience more directly a community seeking to organize its life around prayer, brotherhood, work, and service. I was discovering, through another kind of human experience, that the teachings of Christ could shape not only individual feeling but the entire organization of a community. People could share their gifts, support one another through useful work, and establish a way of life intended to express their spiritual commitments. That example would become increasingly important to me as my own understanding of the relationship between faith, economics, and human cooperation continued to develop.
Yet when I consider all the people and experiences that helped shape me, I return again and again to my love for the children. If someone were to ask me where I most deeply experienced the love of God through the relationships of my life, I believe I would have to say that it was through loving the children. Their innocence, their joy, their need for affection, and their extraordinary capacity to bring happiness into a home opened my heart in ways that I had not fully understood before. To love a child is to become concerned not only with the present moment but with that child’s future, safety, happiness, and development. It is to recognize the preciousness of a life that has only begun to unfold. Through loving the children, I learned something about tenderness, responsibility, patience, and the joy of giving without expecting something in return. I came to appreciate more deeply why Christ placed such importance upon little children and why the love of a family can become such a powerful expression of the love of God.
And Margie helped me grow in that love of family. Through our life together, the children, the grandchildren, and the relationships that surrounded us, I experienced the joy and responsibility of participating in a family whose members became deeply important to my own understanding of life. It was love for Margie, for our family, and for Emily that helped lead me again toward Florida, where we built a home and developed a business. The home was more than a residence, and the business was more than an economic enterprise. They were parts of our effort to establish a life together, provide for the people we loved, and create the conditions in which our family could continue to develop. At the same time, it was my affection for the customers I had served in New York, and my desire to continue fulfilling my responsibilities to them, that helped sustain that business relationship across the years. I was learning that business itself could become an expression of care when the people we serve are regarded not merely as transactions, but as individuals who have placed their trust in our abilities and our commitment to them.
Later, it was love for Margie and our grandson that helped lead us toward another beginning in Smithtown, New York. We were seeking a new life in which the family could again become the center of our daily experiences. I remember the joy of wanting Margie to have that opportunity, particularly during the final six years of her life when her health and circumstances required increasing care. I wanted her to experience the happiness of being close to her grandson, to share in the warmth of family life, and to enjoy as fully as possible the years that remained. Caring for Margie was not simply a duty imposed by illness. It was an expression of the love that had brought us together and sustained us through so many years. There were difficulties, of course, and responsibilities that required patience and perseverance. Yet beneath them was the desire to give someone I loved a life filled with dignity, comfort, companionship, and the joy of family.
It has now been approximately ten years since Margie left this world. During that period, other loved ones have also passed from my daily life. Among the losses that remain particularly painful are Chris and Kenny. They were my nephews, but in my heart they were like my own children. The love I felt for them was not limited by the formal description of our family relationship. They belonged to the family of people whose lives had become part of my own. Their loss, together with the passing of Margie and other family members, changed the world in which I had been living. After Margie’s death, I was no longer able to share much of the life of my grandson, and over these past ten years I have had relatively little relationship with much of my family. The daily experience of family companionship that had meant so much to me was no longer present in the same way. There was grief, distance, silence, and a long period in which much of the love that had previously directed my outward life had to find a different place within me.
Today I can look back upon those years with a different understanding. I do not believe that the love I experienced disappeared when the people I loved were no longer physically present. Their lives remain part of mine. Their words, their faces, their laughter, the places we shared, and the memories we created continue to influence the way I understand myself and the world. In my faith, I hold those who have gone before me within the hope of eternal life. Their spirits and the love I associate with them remain part of my inner life. When I reflect upon the heavenly world, I think of those people with gratitude and affection, recognizing that the love we shared continues to shape my choices and aspirations. I do not walk into the future emptied of those relationships. I carry them with me, not as a burden that prevents me from living, but as a continuing source of meaning that can help me love and serve others.
During the ten years following the passing of my Queen, Margie, into the Heavenly World, much of the family life that had given such meaning to my existence was no longer present in the same way. Yet three special friendships remained. They stayed the course, and today I recognize that each contributed something different to my continuing development.
There was my dear friend Joann, whose companionship reinforced my relationship with Christ and the Blessed Mother Mary. Through that friendship, the spiritual love that had awakened within me so many years before remained an important part of my life. There was my Intelligence Soldier Friend, someone with whom I could talk, share my thoughts, and maintain the human connection that becomes especially meaningful during periods of solitude and reflection. And there was my General Friend, whose continuing friendship strengthened my belief that my life still had a purpose extending beyond my own personal circumstances—a purpose connected to my love for my nation and my growing desire to contribute to the achievement of world peace.
As I look back upon these relationships, I recognize that I had not been entirely separated from the world during those years. Through friendship, conversation, spiritual encouragement, and a continuing sense of responsibility, important connections remained alive. I was still learning, still loving, and still developing an understanding of what my remaining life might become.
And now, as I feel myself walking more consciously with Christ, I can appreciate these relationships in a new way. They remind me that even during periods of grief and inward development, the love of other people can continue to nourish our lives and help us recognize possibilities for the future. They stayed the course. And their friendship became part of the journey that has brought me to this moment.
As I consider this whole journey, I begin to recognize something remarkable about the way love directed my life. I went to Florida because I loved my grandmother. I worked among migrant families because I cared about the poor. I sat at family tables because I loved the people gathered around them. I traveled because of people I loved, returned home because of family responsibilities, cared for my father because I loved him, and sought justice because I believed truth mattered. I listened to the monks because their music touched my spirit. I went to West Point because I loved my country. I built homes and businesses because I wanted to provide and create a meaningful life with the people I loved. I cared for Margie because I wanted her remaining years to be filled with the affection and dignity she deserved. I delighted in the children because their happiness opened my heart to the extraordinary beauty of life.
At the time, I did not fully understand what all these movements were accomplishing within me. I was following love. I was responding to people, circumstances, and responsibilities as they entered my life. I was learning through participation rather than through a complete intellectual understanding of what was taking place. Now, with the experience of those decades behind me, I believe I can see a larger pattern. Love was not merely one feeling among many. It was the spiritual quality that repeatedly moved me toward relationships and experiences through which my consciousness continued to develop. What began as an awakening of compassion became an education in the realities of human life. And that education has now brought me toward a different understanding of my relationship with Christ.
The teachings of Christ increasingly became the moral center through which I examined these experiences. What does it actually mean to love one’s neighbor? What does forgiveness require when people disagree profoundly? What is the responsibility of someone who possesses knowledge, experience, resources, or influence toward those who may need assistance? How should we understand wealth, enterprise, authority, security, and power when measured against the dignity of human life? These questions gradually carried my reflections beyond personal morality into the organization of society itself. I began to recognize that the same principles that should guide our relationships within families also raise important questions about the conduct of businesses, the responsibilities of governments, the relationships between nations, and the means by which humanity seeks to resolve its conflicts.
This understanding has become particularly meaningful through my recent study of Thomas Troward and The Creative Process in the Individual. In Chapter Seven, “Race Thought and New Thought,” Troward explores the relationship between the thinking of humanity collectively and the possibilities of an individual consciousness that begins to recognize and exercise its creative capacities. I do not regard Troward’s philosophy and the Gospel as identical. Rather, I find in his work a philosophical way of considering the development of human consciousness, while I find in Christ the spiritual and moral direction that I believe must govern that development. It is not enough for human beings to become more intelligent, more creative, more powerful, or more capable of transforming the material world. The question is what will govern those growing capacities. Will they be directed by fear, greed, domination, and the pursuit of power, or by love, compassion, truth, justice, and responsibility? The higher development of consciousness, as I understand it through my Christian faith, requires more than an expansion of human ability. It requires the development of the moral and spiritual qualities necessary to use that ability for the good of humanity.
This is why the narrative I have called 024 — HUMANITY’S UNFINISHED CREATION has become so meaningful to me. The creation of civilization is not merely the accumulation of buildings, technologies, industries, financial institutions, and political systems. It is also the continuing development of the human beings who create and operate them. Every institution reflects, in some measure, the intentions, assumptions, knowledge, and moral choices of the individuals who participate in it. A family can become a place of love and mutual support or a place of conflict and injury. A business can create useful products, meaningful employment, and opportunities for human development, or it can become an instrument through which narrow interests are pursued without sufficient regard for others. A nation can seek security while respecting the dignity of other peoples, or it can allow fear and ambition to lead it into destructive conflict. The technologies humanity develops can improve life beyond anything previous generations imagined, or they can expand our capacity to harm one another. The physical tools are important, but the consciousness governing their use is ultimately decisive.
This morning, as I reflected upon these ideas and listened to the narrative I had been developing, I began to recognize how closely they were connected to my own life. Sitting beside my pond, in the quiet that has so often provided an opportunity for reflection, I felt a renewed sense of the spiritual companionship I had experienced when I was first born again. I felt that I was walking with Christ again. Yet this time my thoughts were not directed primarily toward withdrawing from the difficulties of the world in order to seek spiritual understanding. They were directed toward returning to those difficulties with a different understanding of my responsibility. The peace of reflection had served its purpose by helping me see more clearly. But peace within myself, however precious, could not be the final objective of my spiritual development. If the teachings of Christ were truly becoming part of my consciousness, then those teachings needed to find expression through the way I lived, worked, spoke, created, and responded to other people.
An ordinary conversation earlier in the day helped bring this understanding into practical focus. I had been considering how two people entering a shared financial responsibility could protect one another from an unfair burden if circumstances changed. Beneath the legal and financial questions was a more fundamental issue: honor. I found myself returning to a simple principle: No honor, no real relationship. A relationship cannot be sustained by expressions of affection alone. It must also be supported by truthfulness, reliability, fairness, and respect for the commitments one person makes to another. Love requires practical responsibility. It is easy to speak about compassion and the brotherhood of humanity in philosophical terms, but those principles become meaningful when an individual has the opportunity to protect another person’s interests, offer thoughtful advice, or help prevent an injustice. I recognized in this ordinary circumstance something important about the larger thesis I had been developing. Humanity’s spiritual progress is not measured only by its great declarations. It must also be measured by the character of the decisions made in everyday life.
That realization helped me understand the next stage of my calling. I do not feel that my inward spiritual development has ended, nor do I believe that I have arrived at a final understanding of Christ, the Holy Spirit, or the mysteries of human consciousness. I expect to continue learning for as long as I live. But I do feel that a significant stage of preparation has been reached. I have accumulated experiences, knowledge, relationships, and insights that now ask to be brought together in a more deliberate way. I want to return consciously to the activities of the world, not simply because there is professional work to undertake, but because work itself can become an expression of spiritual responsibility. I want the development of THL SCI, my writing, my relationships, and the people I encounter along the way to become opportunities to put into practice the principles I have spent so many years seeking to understand.
Through THL SCI, I have been developing a model of professional consulting that begins not with equipment or commercial transactions but with understanding the mission, identifying the responsibilities of those involved, protecting human life, and creating systems capable of supporting the continuing operations of an organization. As I reflect upon that work, I see a relationship between the principles of responsible security consulting and the larger philosophy of human service. Security is ultimately concerned with protecting people and the conditions under which they can live, work, gather, and fulfill their responsibilities. Technology should serve those purposes rather than become an end in itself. A building, an institution, or an enterprise is more than a collection of physical components. It is a living environment of human relationships and purposes supported by material systems. The professional responsibility is to understand those relationships, recognize the risks, and help create conditions in which people can carry out their missions safely and effectively. This is practical work, requiring technical competence, sound judgment, and accountability. Yet it can also become one expression of the deeper principle that knowledge and ability carry an obligation of service.
My writing has been moving in a related direction. Through Witness to Calling and the Master Mind narratives, I have been bringing together the ideas of economists, philosophers, religious thinkers, military leaders, statesmen, scientists, and individuals whose lives have contributed to our understanding of civilization. These imagined discussions are not intended to substitute for the serious scholarship, diplomacy, and practical work required to resolve humanity’s problems. Rather, they provide a way to examine how different fields of human knowledge might contribute to a more complete understanding of those problems. I have become increasingly concerned with the relationship between economics and war, between national security and international cooperation, and between technological development and the moral responsibilities of the people who control it. My discussions of the American System, world economic development, military strategy, artificial intelligence, religious traditions, and international peace are beginning to appear to me as parts of one larger question: How can humanity organize its extraordinary creative powers so that they contribute to life rather than destruction?
The question is becoming more urgent as humanity develops technologies capable of transforming both productive life and warfare. Artificial intelligence can expand our ability to understand complex systems, accelerate scientific discovery, improve communications, and assist in solving problems that have challenged previous generations. Yet similar technological capacities can be incorporated into increasingly destructive forms of conflict. Military competition, economic insecurity, misunderstandings between nations, and the growing speed of technological decision-making create risks that cannot be addressed through technical superiority alone. Nations require legitimate security, but lasting peace also requires diplomacy, economic opportunity, restraint, reliable institutions, and the ability to recognize the humanity of those with whom we disagree. The moral qualities of those who make decisions become increasingly important as the consequences of those decisions expand. It is here that I believe the teachings of Christ have profound relevance, not as a substitute for political and military judgment, but as an ethical foundation calling leaders to consider the dignity of human life, the consequences of violence, the possibilities of reconciliation, and their responsibility to generations yet unborn.
I have also come to appreciate that any genuine pursuit of world peace must recognize the spiritual and cultural diversity of humanity. My own understanding is rooted in Christ, and I seek to live through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But the human family includes people whose religious traditions, philosophical understandings, and historical experiences differ greatly from mine. If love, compassion, dignity, and freedom are to become foundations for peace, then those values must also govern the manner in which we engage people of other beliefs. A collective awakening of Christ consciousness, as I understand and hope for it, cannot mean compelling others to accept my faith. It means seeking to make the qualities Christ taught increasingly visible through freely chosen human conduct and inviting others into a shared commitment to peace. It means discovering possibilities for cooperation without denying meaningful differences. I believe that the teachings of Christ can help inspire such a development, while recognizing that many people of other traditions also dedicate their lives to compassion, justice, reconciliation, and service.
The phrase collective Christ consciousness has therefore taken on a particular meaning in my developing understanding. It begins with the individual who awakens to the spiritual reality of love and accepts responsibility for expressing that love in action. It enters the family through patience, forgiveness, fidelity, honor, and mutual care. It enters the community when people recognize obligations beyond their own immediate interests. It enters business and economics when productive activity respects human dignity and creates opportunities for others to develop their abilities. It enters national life when public authority is exercised with justice, restraint, and responsibility. And it can begin to influence international relationships when leaders understand that the security and prosperity of their own people cannot be permanently separated from the conditions of the larger world. This is not a claim that human beings will suddenly become perfect, or that history can be freed from every conflict. It is a conviction that humanity can continue to develop morally and spiritually, and that individuals have a responsibility to contribute to that development wherever they have the opportunity.
I am especially conscious that such a vision must remain grounded in reality. The world is filled with genuine disagreements, competing interests, inherited grievances, and problems for which no simple solution exists. Peace cannot be achieved merely by declaring that people should love one another. Nations must confront questions of security, sovereignty, resources, economic development, and the protection of their populations. Institutions must be designed to function when human beings disagree or fail to meet their responsibilities. Agreements must be supported by accountability. Justice cannot be sacrificed in the name of superficial harmony. Yet neither should those difficulties become reasons to abandon the pursuit of a more peaceful civilization. The moral direction supplied by Christ’s teachings must enter into a serious engagement with the world as it actually exists. That, to me, is the difference between a spirituality that remains largely an inward experience and one that is prepared to undertake outward responsibility.
As I reflect upon my own life, I increasingly understand the significance of the people who helped form me. Pop and Margie remain present in my thoughts, not only through memory and affection, but through the continuing influence of family love and responsibility. The experiences of my earlier years, the businesses I built, the people I met, the work I undertook, and the relationships that endured all contributed something to the individual I have become. Even the periods of uncertainty, disappointment, and searching have helped me recognize the limits of my understanding and the need to remain open to learning. I do not regard those years as wasted preparation. They are part of the reality upon which my present consciousness has developed. I can now look upon them with greater appreciation for the way experience can deepen spiritual understanding when we are willing to examine our lives and learn from them.
There is, however, another distinction that I believe must be made if I am to understand the spiritual significance of this moment. When I say that I am walking with Christ again, I do not mean that I ever truly left Christ or that Christ ceased to be part of my life. I believe He was with me throughout those years, including the times when I could not fully understand what I was experiencing or why my life was moving in particular directions. What has changed is the character of my own awareness of that relationship. During my first awakening, I experienced Christ principally through the grace that enlightened my mind, the compassion awakened within my heart, the love of Scripture, and the movements of love that drew me toward the people and experiences of my life. I was receiving, responding, and gradually learning. I was being formed through experiences whose larger meaning I could only begin to recognize after many years.
Today, I experience that relationship differently. I understand it as something more conscious and reciprocal. I no longer feel that I am simply being moved from one experience to another by a love whose broader purpose I do not understand. I feel that I have developed a personality, a body of experience, and an understanding of reality that allow me to bring my own knowledge, questions, concerns, and judgments into my relationship with Christ. Through prayer, reflection, Scripture, conscience, and the continuing search for truth, I experience a sense of spiritual communication and companionship that helps me consider the decisions before me. I want that relationship to inform my participation in the world, not by replacing my responsibility to reason, learn, and seek the counsel of others, but by deepening the love and moral purpose with which I undertake those responsibilities.
I have also begun to understand my years of separation and relative solitude in a different way. There were times when I might have preferred to remain surrounded by the people and relationships that had brought so much happiness into my life. Yet those circumstances changed, and I was left with memories, questions, grief, and opportunities for inward reflection. In my faith, I have come to consider whether God, in His infinite wisdom, may have permitted this period to become an important stage in the development of my consciousness and personality. I cannot presume to know all the purposes of God or why particular losses and separations occurred. But I can recognize what those years have produced within me. They have given me time to examine my experiences, study the world, develop my understanding of spiritual consciousness, and consider more seriously the responsibilities of my remaining life. What was once an inward search has gradually become preparation for a more deliberate return to outward service.
And I do not feel that I am returning alone. I carry within me the love of my grandmother, my aunt and uncle, Pop, Margie, Chris, Kenny, the children, my grandson, and the many other people whose lives helped form my own. I carry the memories of the family tables, the homes, the journeys, the music of the monks, the people I served, and the experiences that taught me something about compassion and reality. In the language of my faith, I think of those who have passed from this life as belonging to the heavenly world, and I continue to feel united with them through love and remembrance. Their presence in my memory and spiritual life does not remove the need to establish new relationships or undertake new responsibilities. Rather, it reminds me of the love that once moved me so powerfully through the world, a love that I now wish to express with greater consciousness and understanding.
This is why my present experience of walking with Christ feels both familiar and new. It is familiar because the same love remains at its center. It is new because I now recognize more of the world into which that love must enter. I have learned something of business, economic systems, technology, security, government, military affairs, international relationships, and the forces that can bring nations into conflict. I have developed opinions and ideas, questioned assumptions, and sought to understand how different fields of human knowledge might contribute to the improvement of civilization. I want to bring those abilities into my continuing relationship with Christ, allowing the spiritual qualities that first awakened within me to guide the purposes for which I use what I have learned. In that sense, I feel that my relationship with Christ has become not only a source of personal spiritual comfort, but a conscious partnership of faith and responsibility through which I seek to discern how I might contribute to peace.
And so I return to the feeling that has become so important to me today. I feel that I am walking with Christ again. I cannot claim to know every purpose that lies before me or every direction in which my work will lead. I must continue to exercise judgment, seek wise counsel, recognize my limitations, and remain accountable for the consequences of my decisions. But I can consciously choose the spiritual direction I wish my life to follow. I can seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit through prayer, reflection, conscience, and the teachings of Christ. I can approach the people I meet with greater compassion. I can use my professional abilities in ways that protect and serve others. I can continue writing and bringing different perspectives into conversation. I can encourage serious discussion about how economics, technology, security, diplomacy, and moral responsibility might contribute to peace. And I can begin with the responsibilities already before me rather than waiting for some extraordinary opportunity to appear.
Perhaps this is what I am beginning to understand about the nature of calling. It is not necessarily a single event, a particular occupation, or an assignment whose ultimate results we can foresee. It may be a continuing relationship between what we are becoming inwardly and what we are prepared to contribute outwardly. My first spiritual awakening helped me begin to recognize Christ within my life. The years that followed became a long education in the human condition. Now I feel drawn to unite those experiences consciously, allowing my faith to guide the purposes for which I use my knowledge, relationships, and abilities. I am not seeking to place myself above others or to claim a special authority over their lives. I am seeking to become more responsible for my own life and for the opportunities I have to help others. If that work contributes, even in a small way, to a broader awakening of compassion and a more peaceful human community, it will have been worthwhile.
This is how I now understand humanity’s unfinished creation. Civilization remains unfinished because human beings themselves remain developing creatures, capable of both extraordinary goodness and terrible destruction. We possess the intelligence to transform nature, build great institutions, create wealth, and develop technologies of enormous power. But our moral development has not always kept pace with those abilities. The work before humanity is therefore not merely to create more powerful systems. It is to cultivate the wisdom, compassion, self-restraint, and responsibility necessary to govern them. From my Christian perspective, this is where the example and teachings of Christ become essential. They call attention to the dignity of every person, the responsibility to love our neighbors, the necessity of forgiveness, and the possibility of reconciliation even in a world marked by conflict.
I do not know whether humanity will achieve the peace toward which I hope we can develop. I do not know what contribution my own remaining years will make to that possibility. But I do know that I want my actions to be consistent with the faith I profess and the understanding I have gained. I want to live consciously, recognizing that every relationship, every professional responsibility, every act of kindness, every effort to seek truth, and every constructive conversation can become part of a larger human movement toward greater understanding. I want to remain open to the Holy Spirit, not as an excuse to abandon reason or responsibility, but as the spiritual guidance through which I seek to unite them with love. And I want to continue walking with Christ, not simply in the stillness of personal reflection, but in the unfinished and sometimes difficult realities of the world.
Today, October 13, 2026, I recognize this as a meaningful turning point in my journey. I am grateful for the inward development that has brought me here. I am grateful for the people whose lives have helped shape my own. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue learning, creating, and serving. And I feel ready, consciously and spiritually, to return more fully to the work of the world.
I am walking with Christ again. But this time, I am walking with a more developed understanding of reality, a clearer sense of personal responsibility, and an aspiration to contribute to the awakening of Christ consciousness within humanity for the cause of world peace.
My calling is not to complete humanity’s creation by myself. It is to participate faithfully in whatever part of that unfinished work lies within my reach.
I am no longer seeking only to understand my relationship with Christ. I am seeking to live that relationship consciously through my participation in the unfinished creation of a more peaceful human civilization.
And perhaps that is where the next chapter of my life truly begins.
Not in withdrawing from the world to find Christ.
But in walking with Christ, consciously, as I return to the world.