I am going to walk to the library. It's so beautiful out. The hills of my town are lush and green and dotted with wildflowers. The poppies have bloomed, and 5 o'clock is no longer the end of the world. I am going to check out books by P.G. Wodehouse, some Goon Show scripts and a collection of Mary Oliver poems. Libraries actually make me think lovingly of my mother. I am not sure if this will lead me directly to the two tablespoons of forgiveness, but you never know. You take the action, and then the insight follows. It was my mother who taught me how to wander through the racks, and wander through a book, letting them take me where they would. She and my father took me to the library every week when I was little. One of her best friends was the librarian. They both taught me that if you insist on having a destination when you come into a library, you're shortchanging yourself. They read to live, the way they also went to the beach, or ate delicious food. Reading was like breathing fresh ocean air, or eating tomatoes from old man Grbac's garden. My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between words; about the margins, where so many juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a library, you could find miracles and truth and you might find something that would make you laugh so hard that you get shushed, in the friendliest way. There was sanctuary in a library, there is sanctuary now, from the war, from the storms of our family and our own anxious minds. Libraries are like the mountain, or the meadows behind the goat lady's house: sacred space. So this afternoon, I'll walk to the library. And I'm going to give them 50 bucks, too, in the name of peace, because their budget will be severely cut back in the name of war.

I am going to pray for George Bush's heart to change, so that he begins to want to be a part of the human family. He really doesn't want to gather at the table with God's other children, because he might have to sit with someone he hates. Iraqi soldiers, or someone like me. I really, really know this feeling. It is something he and I have in common. But I don't think Bush believes that all people deserve to be fed, and I do. Pretty much. He believes in serving the poor, if they are the deserving poor. But I am going to pray for him to be OK today, to feel loved, and to be fed, because I think that if you want to change the way you feel about someone, you have to change the way you treat them. I'm going to try to treat him better. Maybe I will send him a little something; socks perhaps, or felt pens. Or balloons. He's family. I hate this, because he is a dangerous member of the family, like a Klansman. To me, his policies deal death and destruction, and maybe I can't exactly forgive him right now, in the classical sense, of canceling my resentment and judgment. But I can at least acknowledge that he gets to eat, too. I would not let him starve, and I will sit next to him, although it will be a little like that old Woody Allen line that someday, the lion shall lie down with the lamb, although the lamb is not going to get any sleep. That's the best I can do right now. Maybe at some point, later, briefly, I will feel a flicker of something more. Let me get back to you on this.

I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees. I am going to close my eyes and listen. Last Sunday during the children's sermon, my pastor asked the kids to close their eyes for a moment -- to give themselves a timeout -- and after a while, asked them what they heard. They heard birds, and radios, dogs barking, cars, and then one small boy said, "I hear the water at the edge of things." I am going to listen for the water at the edge of things.

So I am going to tell my hopeless friend these stories. This is the only sanctuary I can think to offer right now. I feel like those islanders in the South Pacific where the United States Air Force landed during World War II, to use as a base of operations. The islanders loved the Air Force being there, all that loud and blinding light from above, landing in a path of klieg lights on their land. They believed it was divine because there was no other way to understand all this energy. And after the Air Force left, they created a fake runway with candles and torches and pyres, and awaited its return. But I am going to pray for the opposite of loud crashing lights. I am going to notice the lights of the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars, the lights of our candles as we march, the lights with which spring teases us, the light that is already present. If the present is really all we have, then the present lasts forever. That will be the benediction.

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