The best of humanity's recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance.

In honor of Oprah Winfrey: Even greater than the ability to inspire others with hope is the power to motivate them to give as much to the lives of others as they would give to their own; and to empower them to confront the worst in themselves in order to discover and claim the best in themselves.

Everywhere we shine death and life burn into something new…

Just above our terror, the stars painted this storyin perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too oftenabused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.

Peace is not so much a political mandate as it is a shared state of consciousness that remains elevated and intact only to the degree that those who value it volunteer their existence as living examples of the same... Peace ends with the unraveling of individual hope and the emergence of the will to worship violence as a healer of private and social dis-ease.

Souls reconstructed with faith transform agony into peace.

Oh what a wonderful soul so bright inside you. Got power to heal the sun’s broken heart, power to restore the moon’s vision too.

How many fears came between us?Earthquakes, diseases, wars where hellrained smoldering pus from skies made of winged death.Horror tore this world asunder.While inside the bleeding smokeand beyond the shredded weeping fleshwe memorized tales of infinite good.--from The History Lesson

And now we step to the rhythm of miracles.--from The Light, That Never Dies