Human life is a precious gift that is best utilized for the search of the sublime, the good, the beautiful, and the eternal reality which is joy itself. Such words may appear trite to some, true to some, and irrelevant to still others. Certainly, in the middle of the ups and downs of daily living it is easy to become cynical and bitter about the world around us. We have all endured loss in one form or another and there is no one who has not experienced some shock or tragedy at some point in his or her life.

If you listen to the T.V. news even a few times a week, it seems like the whole world is caught in a whirlpool of suffering. There are endless disputes and wars going on. Human beings are fighting, torturing, or killing each other in the name of religion, God, race, territory…