The word Utopia has Greek roots meaning “good place” and “no place.”

Jean-Paul Sartre described human beings as always trying to fil up a hole. Instead of being content with our freedom, he said, we are always trying to limit it by having something, doing something, being something. Sartre felt that human life was an absurd tug-of-war between trying to be free on the one hand and trying to be somebody on the other.

The truth is we can have deep and abiding peace in the midst of terrible conflict.

“To know what is and to adjust one’s life to that knowledge is the highest natural wisdom of man, a wisdom that inevitably points the way to the source of all truth.” Professor Robert J Kreyche

That experience propelled me across the threshold of discovering that my life was a tapestry, not a bunch of disconnected threads thrown into a basket.

The soul stage of tapestry reminds us that when life seems random and ugly, oftentimes we are looking at the bottom of the design. It is the work of the soul to help us see the eternal pattern, and to follow that pattern toward the realization of a beautiful handiwork.

If we are artists, we might think of eternal beauty and its three qualities so magnificently named by Thomas Acquinas — integrity (wholeness), consonance (every part contributing to the tone of the piece), and clarity (brilliance, luminosity, and accessibility to the soul) — and might make those three qualities the objects of our attention and our focus.

Quote from Nietzsche: “Anyone with a why to live for can put up with almost any how.”

In our society, it seems that this is the one thing we are afraid to do with couples, whether their marriages are fine or whether
they are in trouble. We’ll talk about trust and listening and forgiveness, all of which is fine. But we seldom talk to them about God. Seldom do we tell them that they have come together for a reason. Seldom do we tell them that, instead of being a stumbling block to growth and happiness, their spouse’s faults are a precise call to the areas in which they (not their spouse) need to grow. Seldom do we tell them that their spouse is part of their mission on earth, that missions are often difficult, and that we are tempted to abandon them just when the going gets tough.

I have seen new life spark in marriages when I have had people reflect on the John 14, where Jesus says, “I am going to prepare a place for you.” When I ask them, “Do you want to find your special place?” They often nod. “Then look into your spouse’s eyes,” I tell them.

Like the prodigal son, we know where home is, because we have been there once.

Your willingness is the key that unlocks the attic door (the upper room, that special place where we meet God and our Soul).

The word “re-enchantment” comes from the French word chanter. It literally means “to sing again.”. Once I realized that bit of etymology, it occurred to me that it is the perfect word to describe the problem of how to experience the enchantment found in the stage of attic wisdom once you have found yourself back on earth.

“Stations of re-enchantment” — places or pockets of time that enable us to reconnect with the eternal and to “stay tunes” to its beauty and joy. Stations — comes from a Latin word meaning “to stand.”. Its primary meaning is “places to stand on.”