For it was not into my ear she whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips she kissed, but my soul. The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed. Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage. Only then will you discover as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love. And if only there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise right here, right now.

I don’t keep my love for Ziehan a secret - marriage maybe. There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses. To them that you tell your secret you resign your liberty. If we all believe in the freedom of right, then these rights are as much ours as it is yours, or any other men on the street, or any other women on my bed. People demand freedom of expression as a compensation for the freedom of thought, which they seldom use. One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendor of love that is all around us.

Our brightest blazes of happiness and joy are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. No matter how sedentary a life one may live, love can persuade its course deep within the hollow chamber of one’s heart. When Ziehan found her way in mine, I allowed her warmth to illuminate my life and engulf my spirit. We have since discovered that we have enough chemistry between us to combust an eternal flame; and the energy from which has a way of pushing out the real soreness of feeling betrayed to the rugged realities of the world and some of the closest people around us. Being our own torchbearer, it seemed to be a handy response to dodge the tough things for which there are no simple or comforting answers. Our faith acknowledges that no two people think, believe, feel, or encounter life in the same way. Those who are disciplined, for whatever reason, to conform to a single commonly held creed seek their own truthful ways to live and love. We give our approval and seek acceptance because it is validating. It frees us to become our best selves. It is our very differences that make it necessary to practice acceptance toward one another.

Twenty-seven years are long enough a time to wait. And we will continue to wait with such obedience to GOD. Whatever it is that we are waiting for - peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance - it will surely come to us, and when it reaches out for us, we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart. With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more. In the meantime, we shall never pawn the ownership of our happiness to the mercy and whims of those who cannot find patronage to our course. We refused to be fashioned by the network of opinions of a small-complicated and confused society whose sole intent is to reduce us to nothing better than a flock of timid souls, of which they will become our shepherd. Ziehan and I would rather die on our feet than to live on our knees!

Just last week I received a letter from The High Council of The Higher Kingdom. Bruce and I share a paradoxical view in regard to the secret of a good marriage: That all good marriage is a secret – That’s the secret. And like I said before, I don’t keep my love for Ziehan a secret - marriage maybe. There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses. And if your guess is as good as mine, I guess my marriage is better than yours. Why not??


To Be Continued….