"The plumb-line question that has emerged in this recent process is, Where does love lie? I have learned a lot about myself (which, the spiritual masters say, is the beginning of knowing God). Now, having thought all along that I was cultivating a certain simplicity of person, I discover myself in fact to be a person very preoccupied with unfavorable appearances. My heretofore-always-commendable daughter has been brashly unconcerned about what anyone else thinks. And I have had to struggle to avoid seeing this primarily as a projection of my own inadequate parenting skills; I've struggled to let go of embarrassment about what others might think and keep faith with her in her uniqueness. 'Can't you make this awkward transition a little less public?' I find myself thinking to her. But the question rips away my own precarious spiritualized mask. If it looks good, it must be good. Win God's and others' love by looking good. Cover up the deep wounds. Keep them private. Maybe they'll just go away. And I am forced back to the question, Where does love lie? The depth to which the question falls — the level of the Spirit's dancing — says, "Looking good is not the point. The point is, you don't earn belovedness. You receive it. It descends like a dove, unbidden, and you open your ears and heart and life and receive."