"A letter arrives from home. Six men and women, largely scholars and intellectuals, all living in Utah, have been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for exercising beliefs contrary to the doctrine. Apostasy. It is being called Black September.

"There is a history of excommunicating men and women who believe beyond convention. But an institution can never excommunicate a spirit from its body. Cut the trees down. Believe the green stand is gone. Then walk among the stumps when the wind blows through and feel the phantom limbs bowing to what remains, what can never be destroyed.

"We have forgotten the art of a living theology. Look at Hieronymus Bosch to remember. His language of images, visual poetry, is a lyrical meditation.

"We have forgotten that God's declarations are always heard, seen, and delivered through our own creative interpretations. Without language we could not speak of God. We can never escape our own formulations, conjectures, translations. Religions begin as a salve to mystery, not a manifesto of truth. We too can interpret the truth and make it our own. It is our nature to question. It is our nature to create meaning and make myths out of our lives. Each religion creates an anthology of stories, some oral, some written, as an attempt to make the sacred concrete. The Bible. The Torah. The Koran. The Hopi Prophecy. The Book of Mormon. Creation cosmologies around the world deliver us to a place of compassion and reverence. We see the world whole, even holy.

"Spiritual beliefs are not something alien from Earth, but rise out of its very soil. Perhaps our first gestures of humility and gratitude were extended to Earth through prayer, the recognition that we exist by the grace of something beyond ourselves. Call it God. Call it Wind. Call it a thousand different names. Corn pollen sprinkled over the nose of deer. Incense sprinkled from swaying balls held by a priest. Arms folded, heads bowed. The fullness we feel after prayer is the acknowledgment that we are not alone in our struggles and sufferings. We can engage in dialogue with the Sacred, with God and each other. A suffering that cannot be shared is a suffering that cannot be endured."