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What is the Hidden Message of Groundhog Day?

What is the hidden message of Groundhog Day? I would never have thought there was something in Groundhog Day that I didn’t know. I thought I knew the movie by heart. Apparently, I didn’t. To memorize something means to commit it to memory; to learn something by heart means to commit it to the heart.

As my wife and I watched the first few minutes of the movie last night, she suddenly asked, “Why is the groundhog’s name Phil — just like Phil Connors?” Her question sent me reeling. How could I have missed it? Yes! Phil Connors is Punxsutawney Phil. He is the groundhog of the story.

According to Pennsylvania Dutch legend, if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on February 2 and sees its shadow, it retreats into its den and winter lasts six more weeks. If it does not see its shadow, spring arrives early.

Phil Connors is a weatherman—but he is under the weather. He’s fed up with people. He is under his own shadow, though he is unaware of it. His skies are overcast 24/7. Rita and Larry try to pull him out of his shadow, but he always retreats into his den. People drive him nuts — and into his “den.”

When you are under the weather, people always drive you nuts. You want to retreat, withdraw, and languish quietly under the weather of your own exclusivity. Your shadow grows large and frightening. You want to hide. Everyone with a big shadow has a den to hide in — from himself and from others. The shadow is a scary thing.

How do you get out of it?

Spiritually speaking, my shadow is always there until I become aware of it. It remains until I realize its presence. The moment I see it, it is gone. When I become aware of my own shadow, I look behind me and do not see it. My spring has come.”

Phil’s shadow is enormous. He hates his job, he hates his circumstances, he hates people. And like Punxsutawney Phil, he retreats into his “den” to get away from it all. He is not yet aware of his own shadow even though he lives under it 24/7.

So he hides from himself and from others. His “den” is his Groundhog Day. He is trapped in his den — in his own shadow — locked in a vicious circle. How do you escape your own shadow?

All vicious circles are broken the moment we die. All shadows are trampled down by death to self. The Paschal hymn —“Christ trampled down death by His own death”—carries profound spiritual wisdom. It foreshadows the death of the shadow.

Phil remains stuck in his “den” — February 2 — until he becomes aware of his shadow and agrees to die to himself. He passes through the vicious cycles of his own Inferno and Purgatory until, One Day, he finally lets go. The next morning he wakes up — and there is no shadow. It is gone! His spring has come.

Phil Connors is a “weatherman under the weather” who is unaware of his own shadow. That shadow binds him in a vicious cycle of misery until he recognizes it and… releases it.

The moment we die to ourselves, we are freed from the shadow. A new day dawns. And it is February 3. Spring is coming.

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What is the Origin of the Word Data?

What is the origin of the word data? What is data? Here’s a definition I found online:

“Data is raw, unorganized facts, figures, symbols, or observations that represent details about events, objects, or phenomena. As the basic, unprocessed units of information, data can be numerical (quantitative) or descriptive (qualitative). Once collected, structured, and interpreted, data is transformed into valuable insights used for decision-making.”

However, if you look up the etymology of the word data, you will see that it means “something given” — a gift. It comes from the Proto-Indo-European root do-, “to give,” and belongs to a whole family of words related to giving, such as donation, dowry, Pandora, Theodore, and even дар (gift) in Russian.

The difference between the modern understanding of data and its original meaning is subtle but telling. In our time, data is all about collecting information, as if it were simply there for the taking. In the past, however, data meant a gift — and gifts must be recognized.

For example, when I look at my legs, I can collect all sorts of data about them, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I have recognized them as a gift. Recognizing a gift is always a matter of awareness, not calculation.

Even if I collect all the “data” about my legs — length, weight, width, and so on — I still don’t truly know what they are. I only know what they are when I become aware that they have been given.

“When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?” — G.K. Chesterton

My legs are a given — datum. But my knowing what they are is not a given — not datum. Properly speaking, data is a gift recognized. All measurements and calculations made prior to this recognition diminish knowledge rather than increase it.

True knowledge is born from the awareness of a gift. The modern approach to data leads to the diminishment of true knowledge because it is not rooted in wonder — the awareness that we possess nothing yet have been given everything. Without awe and wonder, data becomes anti-knowledge.

What is anti-knowledge? It is a husk of knowledge, devoid of substance. Unless I recognize the gift of legs in my stockings, I live under the illusion of knowing. To know my legs is to experience the awe of having them. That is true knowledge — true data.

True data grants joy, not control or power. When I become aware of the gift of legs, I am struck by the joy of walking on them. If I believe I possess them by right, I will feel no joy. Joy is the overflow of awareness that I dwell within a gift.

Data is a given, but we cannot take it for granted. If we do, we fail to understand that it has been granted. Awareness of a gift is the only antidote to taking things for granted.

We speak of “harvesting” data, “processing” data, “owning” data. The language reveals the posture: reality is no longer a gift but a standing resource. And once reality becomes a resource, wonder goes. What remains is manipulation.

But gifts cannot be manipulated without ceasing to be gifts. To know the meaning of data we must turn and become like little children. A child knows their legs not by measurements in inches, but by the measure of delight in using them.

A knower is a lover, not a consumer. A lover doesn’t stand outside and analyze; he stands within and is astonished.

Recovery of true knowledge begins with a conversion of attention — a return to wonder. It’s all about learning to master thinking through thanking.

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What is the True Significance of Pilgrimage?

What is the true significance of pilgrimage? “Where are we really going? Always home.” — Novalis

The history of mankind is the history of leaving and returning. We always go there and back again. Never only there — always there and back again.

Somehow, we all know that if we stay at home, without The Adventure, we will never become who we are. We need the Road, the Way. We must find the “golden child” within — using Jung’s archetype. The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began, and it is a road “there and back to yourself.”

Any road can become a way back to yourself — if you recognize it as The Way, the Tao. People step out the door because of an inexplicable yearning, an inner urge. Whether I go to Tahiti, Yellowstone, or a park across town, I don’t really go to a place — I go to a person: back to myself.

Hermann Hesse wrote in The Journey to the East:

“Each man had only one genuine vocation — to find the way to himself.”

In the wake of World War I, Hesse became keenly aware of pilgrimage as the only way a person can remain sane in an insane world. We are all pilgrims, following yonder star. We caught a glimpse of it amid the fray, chaos, confusion, and disillusionment of our hope-shattering times.

It calls us by its otherworldly light to go and look for the Child. But how do you tell of such a journey? Hesse’s allegory The Journey to the East captures his uncanny experience of pilgrimage to the “Land of the Morning Star” — his quest to remain spiritually alive in a world gone mad.

What do we need in order not to go mad with the world, which Jung described as undergoing a “collective psychosis”?

According to Hesse, we need to remember. To recall the star we once saw and set out on pilgrimage. The way to the star is The Way. There, on the boundless stretches of time and space, we will encounter the real and the mythical alike. We will meet Melchior, Balthasar, and Caspar — the Magi — who saw the star too and embarked on the same journey.

“For our goal was not only the East, or rather the East was not only a country and something geographical, but it was the home and youth of the soul, it was everywhere and nowhere, it was the union of all times.” — Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East

The Pilgrimage is something we yearn for and yet fear the most.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” — Bilbo Baggins

Bilbo secretly longed for The Journey. Gandalf’s nudge out the door was not an act of forcing — it was the awakening of Bilbo’s own dreams: the desire to go there and back again. Bilbo had glimpsed “the star” before. He remembered its mysterious call — and he hated himself for not following it.

Deep down, he knew that the worst tragedy under the sun is not to go on a journey.

Hesse writes:

“Once in their youth the light shone for them; they saw the light and followed the star, but then came reason and the mockery of the world; then came faint-heartedness and apparent failure; then came weariness and disillusionment, and so they lost their way again, they became blind again. Some of them have spent the rest of their lives looking for us again, but could not find us. They have then told the world that our League is only a pretty legend and people should not be misled by it.”

To see the Star is a dangerous thing — it calls us back to ourselves. The world tells us it is “a pretty legend,” nothing more, but the heart tells a different story. The heart yearns for nothing less than to become a Pilgrim and join the League.

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What is the Significance of the Wave-Particle Duality?

What is the significance of the wave-particle duality? Wave-particle duality is truly fascinating. It’s where physics becomes poetry.

When we don’t observe an electron, it behaves like a wave; when we do, it behaves like a particle. Whatever we zero in on becomes discrete — turns into bits and pieces. Whatever we don’t observe behaves like a wave — Music. Why? Physics doesn’t answer that question. Poetry does.

Everything we zero in on becomes fragmented. The fallen mind perceives the world in bits and pieces. It wants to control by analyzing and manipulating. It believes that the whole equals the sum of its parts. It wants to understand the bits and pieces to control the whole. It fails. The Whole is always larger than the sum of its parts.

When we are focused on the parts, reality appears as discrete. It doesn’t yet show us what it is. When we stop zeroing in on its parts, it suddenly changes its behavior and becomes… Music. The Wave. It waves at us so we wake up from the illusion of control and attune to the Music of the Whole.

Is the world a particle or a wave? A particle when we observe it with a view to seeing its parts. And a wave when we stop looking for parts and look for participation. We no longer look at it but through it. The world becomes transparent. We see through it. It is no longer an idol. It is an Icon that reveals to us the mystery of the Whole.

The world is Music from the invisible realm incarnated in its many parts. When we stop looking for parts we begin participating in the Whole. We become artists. When an artist creates art, they may be looking at individual parts of the picture, but they must hear the Music of the Whole at all times — otherwise, no part will come out right.

All artists know that. You must hear the Music first, and then every stroke of your paintbrush will fall in its place. The Whole reveals to us the meaning of each part. We no longer zero in on the part itself to understand the Whole. We focus on the Whole to understand its parts.

When we start with participation, we understand every part. When we start with observing parts, we don’t understand even the parts. When we look AT the world, it is an idol. When we look THROUGH the world, it is an icon. We become perceptive of the Music from beyond the visible realm which gives meaning to each individual part. We realize the world is a huge Parable that opens up to us when we grok the Whole.

Werner Heisenberg said:

“Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables.”

And Albert Einstein:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

Our gaze is magical. If we look to see parts, we will find them. Our gaze will create them. If we look to catch the Wave, we will. When we catch it and ride it, we will participate in the Great Music, and everything around us will become a Parable.

“Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?” Jesus in Mark 4:13

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How Do You Conquer the Ego? Dante, Lacan, and the Power of Being Seen

How do you conquer the ego? The French philosopher Jacques Lacan says,

“What determines me, at the most profound level, in the visible, is the gaze that is outside.”

According to Lacan, it is highly curious that human behavior and self-perception drastically change the moment we become aware of being looked at. An outside gaze, when caught, changes us profoundly. No one remains the same when they know they are being seen.

Why?

Because we are revealed as human beings only when we are seen. The Gaze is the ultimate revelatory act. Dante says of Beatrice’s eyes in Vita Nuova:

“Whenever and wherever she appeared, by virtue of my hope in her marvelous greeting [gaze], no one could be my enemy; on the contrary, I became possessed by a flame of charity that made me forgive whoever had hurt me, and were someone to ask me any question at that moment, my response would have been, simply, “Love,” my expression clothed in humility.”

Dante had many enemies and yet, the moment he caught her gaze, no one in the world could remain his enemy. Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, all inner struggle subsided, and humility arose — without struggle, as a response to the gaze. What Dante saw in that gaze was different than what Petrarch encountered in Laura.

For Petrarch — and many others — their earthly love was a distraction from God. Petrarch’s inner struggle was precisely that Laura competed with God for his heart. For Dante, Beatrice was not a distraction from God but theophany. There was no competition. Through her eyes, God revealed His own gaze.

What happened in that gaze? Suddenly, unexpectedly, Dante felt exalted and humbled at the same time. True humility always arises as an inner response to being seen. False humility is an attempt to bring oneself down without the awareness of being seen.

Such attempts are never successful. In fact, they only inflate the ego further.

True humility is a profound paradox: we feel most humble when we feel most exalted — in the Divine Gaze. When we catch that Gaze, we know we are singled out, made precious, chosen. That Gaze lifts us to the seventh heaven.

At that moment, the ego dies a quiet and happy death. We no longer need to establish or exalt ourselves. We already feel exalted to the highest heights. Unless we are exalted by the Other, we will inevitably attempt to exalt ourselves. The moment we become aware of how we are being looked at, the ego falls silent.

The Gaze humbles us by revealing who we truly are. This is the most humbling experience of all: to discover who we are in the eyes of the Lover. The Gaze humbles by extolling.

C.S. Lewis said:

True humility is not thinking less of yourself: it’s thinking of yourself less.

But it is impossible to think of yourself less without first being exalted by the Gaze. The Gaze lifts us to such heights that all our attempts at self-exaltation suddenly appear absurd. We give them up instinctively. It simply makes no sense to think much of oneself once we become aware of how we are being seen.

The paradox of humility is that it’s the flip side of being exalted — by the loving gaze. People think much of themselves only because they are unaware of being seen. The ego exalts itself precisely when it does not know how greatly it has already been exalted.

It puffs itself up and seeks to grow ever larger until one day — somewhere in the middle of the Ponte Vecchio — it lifts its eyes and is suddenly smitten by how it is being looked at. In that instant, it begins to laugh at its own efforts at self-exaltation.

All human attempts at self-exaltation are ridiculous, because if only we knew how greatly we have already been exalted, we would exclaim with Dante: “I am possessed by a flame of charity,” and we would answer every question with a single word:

Love.

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What is the Difference Between Facts and History

What is the difference between facts and history? When I read my history textbook back in school, I often thought: Gosh, there are so many facts about this or that person or event, but so little story. Isn’t history supposed to be a story?

For some reason, I felt that facts ought to cohere into a story. They didn’t.

The same thing happened just yesterday after I read Pavel Florensky’s biography on Wikipedia. The article lists many “historical” facts about his life, yet somehow misses the point of who he was entirely. Speaking of his last years before his execution in 1937, it states:

“On November 15, 1934, he began working at the Solovetsky camp iodine production plant, where he focused on the extraction of iodine and agar-agar from seaweed and patented four scientific innovations.”

The passage almost sounds as if he was simply assigned this work by the authorities. He wasn’t. It was his conscious choice.

Researching and extracting iodine from seaweed allowed Florensky to remain spiritually alive and sane in a death camp. He knew perfectly well that Solovki would most likely become his grave, and so he chose to pursue something that filled him with life. And he succeeded. Everyone who met him there was astonished by how much life this man radiated in the face of death.

Wikipedia missed the most essential thing — the Wonder he perceived, embodied, and sought in all things.

Four months into his term, he wrote to his son about the mysterious beauty of permafrost:

“What resulted were fairytale-like caves made of the purest crystal ice — radiant ice, fibrous ice, white ice, and at the bottom, reddish-brown, yet completely transparent… I don’t have the ability to describe how beautiful it is, nor can I draw it. One day, you’ll see a series of sketches of the columns and other details, but even those sketches don’t come close to conveying the beauty of these caves. I doubt that any artist could truly capture it — it’s too difficult a task. It’s better to read fairy tales.”

This passage tells us more about Florensky than all the facts combined. Why?

Because history does not consist of facts. The word history comes from the Ancient Greek ἵστωρ (hístōr), meaning a wise man or a witness. History is the story of a witness.

To know history, you must have seen something — physically or spiritually (or both). History is not so much the retelling of past events as it is the testimony about something seen. The “history” in my school textbook was not history in this proper sense. It did not consist of stories told by witnesses. It was a compilation of facts: who did what, when, how, and why.

Facts without vision do not make history. Witness does.

What was Pavel Florensky like? Reading Wikipedia is not enough. In fact, it leads one astray. To know him, I must become a witness to his life — by reading his own books or the accounts of those who truly witnessed him.

A hístōr is someone who sees. I must see Pavel Florensky inwardly while reading his words. Only then will I know true history. Facts are part of history, but they do not constitute it. The most important moments of history rarely make it to the official record. Wonder cannot be archived.

Florensky did not remain spiritually alive in Solovki by accident, nor did he “labor” there in the usual sense of the word. He bore witness — to beauty in permafrost, to meaning in degradation, to life where death expected to reign alone.

That is history indeed.

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Why Doesn’t AI Understand Context? An Insight from The New York Times

Why doesn’t AI understand context? Martin Heidegger famously argued:

“The essence of technology is nothing technological.” — The Question Concerning Technology

What, then, is its essence? Its essence is “enframing”— a way of giving us a particular lens through which to view the world. Modern technology is Gestell: a mode of disclosing reality, not a tool. It reveals reality as “standing-reserve.”

But is this true?

The New York Times recently published an article titled “Companies Are Pouring Billions into A.I. It Has Yet To Pay Off.” And Forbes echoed it with an article: “Companies Are Pouring Billions into A.I. Here’s Why They’re Not Seeing Returns.” Why is this happening?

The New York Times emphasizes the human side: employees resist tools they do not trust. Forbes zeroes in on technical issues: AI still fails to understand the context of work. Surprisingly, the solution proposed in both cases is itself technical in nature —training AI to “understand” context.

But can AI understand context? Context is what surrounds the text — the background that allows us to understand the true meaning of words, events, or ideas. How do you train AI to understand context? Companies tend to propose only one solution: feed it more data.

Yet, reducing context to data is precisely what Heidegger calls enframing. Context is not data; it appears as data when we look at it through a technical lens. But what is context proper? The word context comes from the Latin con (“with, together”) and texere (“to weave”). Literally, context means “a weaving together.”

To understand context, we must be weavers. It’s more art than science. To truly understand my friend’s words, I must artfully weave the individual threads of what I know about them into a single, meaningful picture. A weaver doesn’t simply assemble the picture from bits and pieces — they weave a tapestry from disparate threads based on the vision of the Whole.

A weaver cannot produce a coherent Whole unless they have first seen the Whole. True art is recreating on earth what we saw in heaven. We can only weave what we have seen — the Heavenly Pattern. AI cannot see the Heavenly Pattern. And because it cannot see, it cannot truly weave. That is why it cannot genuinely understand context.

All humans are Platonists by nature — we instinctively grasp the Idea behind every thing. AI cannot see Platonic Ideas, and therefore it cannot weave. Reality is not data; it is textile — fabric. It is not assembled from bits and pieces but woven from Logos-colored threads, revealing something that comes from beyond this world.

The employees in those companies are human, and they instinctively sense what AI cannot. That is why they distrust it. Will this ever change? To be able to weave — to grasp context — you must be able to see the invisible.

Reality is not data. It is fabric. It is a tapestry — a visible image of what cannot be seen by the physical eyes. To dwell in the world contextually means to artfully weave on earth what has been revealed in Heaven.

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Why Do We Crave Adventure? Searching for the Yonder Star

Why do we crave adventure? Babushka: A Christmas Tale is a children’s tale by Dawn Casey. It’s a simple yet touching story about an old grandma who was busy tidying her home when a bright star shone in the sky.

Soon, three wise men knocked on her door. After she had fed them a hearty meal, they offered her a gift — an invitation to join them on their journey to find the newborn babe, the Prince of Peace.

Somewhat flustered, Babushka must have felt exactly like Bilbo Baggins on that memorable day when Gandalf nudged him out the door to join the dwarves on their adventure. And, like Bilbo, Babushka excused herself by saying she had dishes to do and floors to clean.

The next morning, she woke up to find them gone. To her utter surprise, an aching longing smote her heart. She realized she had made a terrible mistake.

Rushing out the door, she searched desperately, asking everyone she met if they had seen the three wise men. Yet, they were nowhere to be found. And so, as the story goes, Babushka is still wandering to this day — searching, asking, hoping… and giving gifts to anyone she meets.

The moral of the story?

When we choose comfort over adventure, we are always left with the residue of longing. The more we settle in our ways, the more painful the realization that we are missing out on something big and real. We see some people following the star and shrug our shoulders: “Fools. They are chasing after the wind.”

And yet, after they leave, we are overcome by an inexplicable yearning. It dawns on us that we have made a terrible mistake by NOT following the star — the call to adventure. We have been the fools; we have been chasing after the wind. We leap up and begin looking for those strange vagabonds.

We are looking for our “tribe” — those who follow the yonder star. We roam the world searching, looking into people’s eyes as if silently asking, “Are you going there too?” The greatest reward is when we find someone with the same glint in their eyes. They are looking for the same thing!

As Professor Digory Kirke said to the children at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:

“Don’t mention it [your adventure] to anyone else unless you find that they’ve had adventures of the same sort themselves. What’s that? How will you know? Oh, you’ll know all right. Odd things they say — even their looks — will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open.”

And Dostoyevsky mused:

“Beauty is a terrible thing. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”

Beauty is a terrible thing because it is a call. It ignites a battle in our hearts. We long for it, and yet we resist it at the same time. But sooner or later, we hear a knock on the door. We open it and see strange but happy people with a glimmer in their eyes — the shimmer of the yonder star.

They eat and drink with us and invite us on an adventure. We think, “This is madness. I can’t leave like this — without my handkerchiefs, without first cleaning my floors.” But the next morning, the travelers are gone, and a thought strikes us like a lightning bolt:

“I must find them — now”!

And without another thought, we rush out the door.

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Why Wasn’t the Ponte Vecchio Bombed During World War II?

Holiday, Henry; Dante and Beatrice; Walker Art Gallery; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/dante-and-beatrice-97987

Why wasn’t the Ponte Vecchio bombed during World War II? World War II is full of its legends. In the summer of 1944, as Allied forces closed in on Florence, retreating German troops were ordered to destroy every bridge over the Arno to slow their advance.

Every bridge was blown up — except the Ponte Vecchio. The German officer assigned to demolish it refused. “This is the bridge where Dante met Beatrice,” he said. “I cannot possibly destroy it.”

He then radioed the Allies and informed them that the bridge would remain intact — on one condition: they must promise not to use it. The agreement was honored, the Ponte Vecchio was spared, but the officer himself was executed for disobedience.

What compelled this man to sacrifice his life for a bridge? The bridge must have spoken to him about something worth more than life itself — the beauty of the Divine hidden behind ordinary things. Dante’s love for Beatrice was unique in that he never separated his love for an earthly woman from his love for God.

In fact, loving Beatrice was not a distraction from God but the very path to God. For Petrarch — and many other poets — their earthly love was a distraction from God. Petrarch’s inner struggle was precisely that Laura competed with God for his heart.

He loved her intensely, but he also felt guilty that this human passion distracted him from pursuing God. Not so with Dante. He said of Beatrice:

O lady, you who strengthen my hope
and who, for my salvation,
have suffered to leave your footprints even in Hell…

For him, to see Beatrice was to see God. Beatrice became an icon of the Divine — a revelation of God within the physical realm. Dante’s revolutionary thought was precisely this — that whatever you love on earth can lead you to God if you see it as an icon.

If you don’t see it as an icon, it becomes an idol and competes with the Divine in your heart. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

“The eye is the lamp of the body.” — Jesus

Icon and idol are often the same thing — the difference lies in how we look. If we look at a thing, it becomes an idol. If we look through it, it becomes an icon. Dante looked through Beatrice and communed with Divine Light.

Perhaps that is what the German officer saw on the Ponte Vecchio that day. Perhaps he caught a glimpse of that light through the bridge and realized that it was worth more than life itself.

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What Creates Human Connection? Tending the Garden of the Heart

What creates human connection? I like to look at backyards. They reveal what people love to surround themselves with. Whether we realize it or not, most of us unconsciously — and sometimes consciously — try to re-create the Garden of Eden behind our homes.

We intentionally gather things that make us feel safe, calm, and at home. When we see those trees, bushes, flowerbeds, firepits, patios, swings, zip-lines, saints, and everything else we’ve placed there, we feel as if we’re standing inside our own Garden of Eden. Having such a space gives us a sense of safety.

The enclosure of the backyard becomes a protective wall, symbolically shielding us from the chaos of the outside world. And every “thing” within that enclosure speaks to us.

The word “Paradise” itself comes from the Old Persian “pairidaeza,” which means “enclosed garden” or “walled enclosure.” In the Bible, it first appears in the Septuagint. The word consists of two parts: “pairi-” (around) and “-daeza” (wall or enclosure).

Paradise is an enclosure — a place surrounded by a wall. It’s an enclosed circle. Within this circle, everything is secure. Outside of it, danger lurks. Little children understand the meaning of Paradise when they cling to their mother’s knees. They instinctively remain within their safe zone — an invisible enclosure — until they feel secure enough to venture out.

On this side of the Garden of Eden, we must have some form of enclosure — a place full of mighty Guardians that keep watch day and night at the borders of our realm. We must feel protected from the outside world — to build immunity within.

Without Paradise, no one feels safe enough to venture into the big, wide world. Without the experience of being surrounded by Guardians — our own symbolic gargoyles — the world will swallow us. Paradise is necessary for building immunity. And, paradoxically, immunity is what makes community possible.

True community is impossible without immunity. Unless I feel safe — unless I catch a glimpse of my own protective gargoyles out of the corner of my eye — I cannot truly connect with anyone. My ability to dwell in community is directly related to my experience of immunity within my Paradise.

If I lack the experience of Paradise, I will lack the immunity needed to commune. And without immunity, all connection is fragile or distorted. Only those who feel safe enough — loved, enclosed, embraced — can form true community. Those who do not feel safe, loved, enclosed, and embraced cannot connect in a healthy way.

Communism, incidentally, is the crisis of distorted community — precisely because communism arises from a crisis of immunity. It is the opposite of true community because it emphasizes the communal at the expense of the individual.

When individual boundaries are erased — when there is no sufficient enclosure around us — we lose the ability to connect in a healthy way. Communism emerges from a distorted vision of community.

When the individual is swallowed by the collective, neither individuality nor community survives. To have true community, there must first be immunity. Each of us must have the experience of dwelling in a “walled enclosure” where we feel totally safe, loved, and embraced — only then can we truly connect.

God planted the Garden in the East for this very purpose: to surround Adam and Eve with enough love for true community to emerge. Without Paradise, true community becomes impossible — and Communism becomes inevitable.