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Trust can exist at two levels, and both must combine in order to form a more perfect Union.

On the one hand, there is the trust of the deepest underlying motivation of each human being toward peace, love, and harmony.  This motivation can be safely said to exist within the hearts of all.

On the other hand, there also exists the need to be free to be oneself, to pursue the means of self-expression that give shape and meaning to a life.

Here is the arena in which trust becomes more difficult.

For how can one know that another’s desire for freedom will not infringe upon one’s own?

Governments have been instituted throughout time to answer this question, to ensure that the freedom of one did not infringe upon the freedom of another.  Yet, there is another answer to this question.  This answer lies in the capacity and willingness of each heart to serve the common good. 

Such an unqualified desire to put the welfare of the whole on an equal footing with one’s own, has been rare throughout history.  Yet, it is what is needed.  It is what must come.

For love must take the place of enmity, and trust must take the place of fearing the ‘other’ or fearing that something will be taken from oneself.

Such trust cannot happen in a heart that is divided. For only a heart that is unified within itself, holding the two chambers of the human and the Divine, can feel the security that lives in the heart of life.  This security is not based on naivete, nor is it based on a false appraisal of what human beings have been capable of.

It is based on the inner knowledge that we are capable of responding to each other as souls, and that the calling of the unified Heart of which we are each a part, will produce such a response.

This cannot happen at first, when division within the self is still the determiner of one’s emotional life.  Then, only fear and mistrust make sense to the isolated self, the self that does not feel connected to every other.  However, in time, this shall disappear, to be replaced by the inner knowing of oneness, and the inner feeling that there is no loss to self when another part of humanity gains.

Such an identification with others is the basis for trust, and not only for trust, but for the firm foundation of a Republic that prides itself upon the conscience of its citizenry, and the willingness of each one to consult their inner sense of rightness.

The place of conscience is the place of trust, not conscience separated from God, but conscience that holds that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.  This conscience acts like a moral compass within the hearts of all.  It is a compass that has been unseen and unknown to those who have lived in fear, but to those who have been called to something higher, it is everpresent as a lodestar toward action of the highest.

From the place of fear, one cannot trust the conscience of another, since others have often wanted and felt justified in wanting things that have horrified much of humanity.   Therefore, conscience alone cannot be trusted.  But when conscience is connected to the Source from which it derives, when it is connected, finally, to the Source of love that is inherent within each heart, then conscience can be trusted.

For the human experience is not meant to continue in fear and separation of one from another.  It is not meant to stand on its past, but rather on its present and future, for new possibilities are arising within the human heart, and these possibilities shall enable men and women to act in good faith, to remain trustworthy, to not betray each other, to find the source of faithfulness within themselves.  

Such is the inherent capacity of man to build a society that is based in trust, and that maintains justice, not through its show of strength or the creation of fear of consequences, but through its reliance on the trustworthiness of each of its members.

Such a society has not arrived at present, but its precursors within each individual heart are arriving even now.   For all hearts are longing with greater urgency to find the source of peace and love within themselves.  All hearts are more urgently seeking their spiritual home.

Upon this longing and striving a great mountain shall be built,  and it shall reach up to the skies with its noble ideals and be firmly grounded in the earth at the same time.

Such a mountain will give testimony to the fact that the Divine truly exists within the human plane,  and that the society of men and women created in the image of God can be.

This time is not far off, yet it must be invited into our hearts on a daily basis, as we strive for greater trust with one another and with life. 

As this happens, the land that we know as America shall grow in beauty, and its people shall grow in understanding, for the human and the Divine shall be wed in America, and shall give birth to a new life for the Earth.