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It takes away more than you think.



It is almost too embarrassing to discuss in public. There is no explanation for it. Nobody asked for it. Fear is behind it. It is one step. Dictators do it. It is the difference between freedom and oppression. It hurts everyone. It is not done against any one group. It hurts everyone. It is regressive. It hurts everyone. It is a move toward unfreedom. It hurts everyone. It is cause for alarm. It hurts everyone. It is control. It is power. It is unreasonable. It is hatred. It hurts everyone. It is disrespectful. It is wrong. It hurts everyone. It takes away more than you think.


What is it?


Book banning in the United States of America, the land of the free, in the year 2023! Civilizations thrive by growing citizens who learn from the stories of others. Books tell stories. Books bring us into others' stories. Books open worlds. Books are for everyone. Books allow ideas between the covers. Books speak truth. Books shape lives. Books are companions. Books are free to all. Books take us places. Books make us laugh. Books make us cry. Books make us think. Book are our friends. Books set us free from oppressors. Books make us better citizens, locally and globally. Books are benign. (Look it up!) Books are not the enemy of the people. The enemy is hiding under the covers. It has happened before . . .


In the Fourteenth century in the village of Norwich, England, so-called heretics, known as the Lollards, were burned at the stake and dumped in the Wensum River for having of all things, the Bible translated into English. They wanted to read those words written about the life of Jesus. They sacrificed their own lives to read the "Good News." The "Good News" was in a book that powerful church wanted to oppress. It didn't work. Today, in 2023, A.D., Norwich is a UNESCO City of Literature where reading is fully celebrated. Books are on the streets so that everyone who walks along, young, old, white, black, poor, rich, is invited to sit and read. They are proud of their stories. They want people to know their own history. They are not embarrassed to show their best sellers in public. https://www.visitnorwich.co.uk/book-benches/


When will we the people learn? Please share your thoughts.


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© 2023 by Marie Laure

​Six Stages of Pilgrimage:

  • The Call:

  • The opening clarion of any spiritual journey. Often in the form of a feeling or some vague yearning, a fundamental human desire: finding meaning in an overscheduled world somehow requires leaving behind our daily obligations. Sameness is the enemy of spirituality.

  • The Separation:

  • Pilgrimage, by its very nature, undoes certainty. It rejects the safe and familiar. It asserts that one is freer when one frees oneself from daily obligations of family, work, and community, but also the obligations of science, reason, and technology.

  • The Journey:

  • The backbone of a sacred journey is the pain and sacrifice of the journey itself.  This personal sacrifice enhances the experience; it also elevates the sense of community one develops along the way.

  • The Contemplation:

  • Some pilgrimages go the direct route, right to the center of the holy of holies, directly to the heart of the matter. Others take a more indirect route, circling around the outside of the sacred place, transforming the physical journey into a spiritual path of contemplation like walking a labyrinth.

  • The Encounter:

  • After all the toil and trouble, after all the sunburn and swelling and blisters, after all the anticipation and expectation comes the approach, the sighting. The encounter is the climax of the journey, the moment when the traveler attempts to slide through a thin veil where humans live in concert with the Creator.

  • The Completion and Return:

  • At the culmination of the journey, the pilgrim returns home only to discover that meaning they sought lies in the familiar of one's own world. "Seeing the place for the first time . . ."

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