Pray for the people of Belarus.  Newly emboldened to change their country, and at great risk to themselves, millions of them are taking to the streets in protest and dissent.  They're brave, very brave:  the ruling powers will not yield their position without a fight.  An ugly fight.  A violent fight.  The thought makes me shiver.

     Historically, people have overthrown numerous tyrannical, after a fashion, regimes.  Many nations, including the U.S. and France, have rooted their national perception of themselves in these efforts.  In America, it might be represented by "Don't Tread on Me;" in France, it is embodied in "liberte, egalite, fraternite."  But neither of these efforts succeeded apart from violence.  On the other hand, Mahatma Gandhi liberated India from the British without spilling a drop of blood.  And he was a Hindu.

     Belarus faces a different opposition altogether:  a distorted vision of Marxism, a misshapen view of the world and the human being that leaves no room for the spiritual.  The material is all.  Not that the American and French Revolutions were religious movements; they were decidedly political and economic.  Nonetheless, they emerged from a view of the world and humanity that recognized the possibility of transcendence.

     I wish the people of Belarus well.  I also wish them success in creating a society in which freedom is guaranteed in the umbra of transcendence and spirit.