Two and a half years ago I posted an Update that focused on the same dilemma, how to live with open hearts and love for fellow man when the world around us was on the brink of madness?

Regretfully, the need for an answer that can help us face the future with optimism and belief in humanity’s innate goodness, has not abated. The chilling consequences of events of the recent past have been replaced with equally horrific headlines; if anything, the challenge has become more pressing.

Natural disasters have become commonplace, hundred-year floods occurring with regularity; as bloody suicide bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq became routine, new wails of grief were heard in Brussels and Barcelona; a deviant president and his spineless sycophants spew ever more venomous and vindictive mendacities; Jim Crow has reappeared with specious voter suppression laws; blatant partisan politics has eroded trust in the judiciary.

How do we live normal, decent lives as our core values and national ethos crumble in front of us?

My answer, while not unwavering, is unchanged: believe in the basic good that exists in all of us.

For humanity, for our planet, there is no other choice. The concept of basic good is immutable.

It is innate to the eternal questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? It is intrinsic to the “answers” that identify us as human.

We are consciousness. We come from consciousness. We will return to consciousness. But what would the blessing of our awareness be without belief in the basic good that underlies the extraordinary quality that distinguishes sentient life from mute emptiness?

Basic good enables us to see those who commit the atrocities and acts of monstrous cruelty as occupiers of the space of darkness, a benefaction that allows us to embrace the contrasting light.

“How do we live normal, decent lives” is a sermon from the pulpit that introduces us to questions so vast in scope and deep in meaning we simply cannot answer them on our own.

Thinking and logic may provide direction, but the path disappears into the horizon. It is a case where the heart supersedes the mind. Ultimately, we must put the answer into ‘Spirit’s’ hands or whatever your visualization is for the undetectable but undeniable presence of our Source.

I often do an exercise with my clients leading them to an exploration of the heart. I ask them to literally visualize going into the heart and telling me what they see, sense and feel.

For some there is blocked emotion to work through, but ultimately the description is the same: “warm, nurturing, safe and peaceful.” Clearly, within all of us, the heart is the source of unconditional love; the core of who we are; the home of our basic goodness.

I choose to live with that belief. To do otherwise would be unbearable.