When we say "God" we refer to the awesome Creator. But a full concept of God includes his intimate and personal relationship with us. He is also our Father and our friend.

Increasingly realizing this in our spiritual experience, we can more readily embrace the evidences of a friendly universe.

When we establish our core identity in the truth of our being a son or daughter of God, we have gone a long way to ending whatever craziness may have infected us. We can enjoy the beauty of nature and the arts, including healthy pleasures and uplifting recreation. And we can lead a life dominated by goodness and make a more effective contribution to the progress of sanity in our world.

We start physical life as a one-celled zygote. We start the development of our mind in complete ignorance. Why should we expect that our physical and mental development gives us advanced standing as we begin our spiritual journey?

Turning to him as his child, we can discover God as our Father. We thus discover a central truth of the Creator and the core of our own identity.

As a both-and thinker who sometimes recognize an either-or, I see that (1) there can be no peace between light (divine truth) and darkness (rebellion against God). But (2) countless other conflicts arise in which we can make tremendous progress if we mobilize different attitudes and tactics, such as we can learn from Marshall Rosenberg's methods of nonviolent communication and Thomas Aquinas's method of discussing disputed questions.

How can someone who used to avoid social service start to become a server of all?

From Dante's Divine Comedy to 12-Step programs to the Enneagram, insight is mixed with overemphasis on the negative and a failure to recognize the new and better way: we (at least we non-addicts) can first be transformed by the Spirit of Truth before we go on to cleanse ourselves from all evils of mind and body.

Along with a revised version of the Serenity Prayer, this episode offers an outstanding spiritual practice of Stephen Post, and shows how to cope when we are relating to a person we find difficult to love. These examples make the philosophy of love come off the page.

The kingdom of God, the spiritual family of God, is open to all who seek it in the faith of a child. But a living faith is a growing faith; and as challenges rise, we may need to re-enter. But we may need more than a child's faith; we may need the spiritual force of the faith of a mature adult.