After some time away, hiking, recovering, reflecting, I write today to express my profound solidarity with the people of France, be they atheist, agnostic, Christian, Muslim, or Jew, as they collectively gather, mourn, and ponder the immensity, in every way, of the tragedy that befall that nation recently.  I don't need to describe what happened; everyone knows.  The pain is overwhelming.  It shows us how difficult living in a free country can be.  It's a constant balancing act between license and order to achieve a common good, a good that is "good" for all.
     It's not easy.  Nor will it ever be.  We are only human beings, marvelous but bent, visionary yet frighteningly myopic:  we cannot see everything we want to see.  If love, the love that flows through the cosmos, the love embedded in the very fabric of what is real, is to mean anything, however, it should not matter what we believe--or what we do not.  We're all called to love, no more, no less.  That's all God is asking of us.
     Love:  the most wonderful thing to know, yet the most challenging thing to achieve.  I pray today that we all will find it, and express who we most are:  beautiful creatures made in the image of God.