Shining like the sun

My sobriety date is June 18, 2007.  Nine months later, my daughter celebrated her 14th birthday.  We went out to dinner, and I mused on what can happen in nine months:  my beautiful daughter, formed and born; a drunk's radical transformation.  It was an evening of joy and gratitude.

That night, there was another anniversary to note.  The event, 50 years earlier, was far more subtle.  I think of it every time I see my daughter.  In his journal, on March 19, 1958, Thomas Merton wrote:

Yesterday, in Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, suddenly realized that I loved all the people and that none of them were or could be totally alien to me...  I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate.  As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are.  And if only everybody could recognize this!  But it cannot be explained.  There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

I really don't have anything to add.

Except Mark Judge's video with music by my favorite band, Crowded House.  Thanks, Mark.

Another video, same music: