BLESSED ARE THE CRAZY
ACTIONS's 21st Banquet, 2024 Keynote Address.
“The saints, with their extravagance of human tenderness, are the great torch-bearers of this belief, the tip of the wedge, the clearers of the darkness. Like the single drops which sparkle in the sun as they are flung far ahead of the advancing edge of a wave-crest or of a flood, they show the way and are forerunners. The world is not yet with them, so they often seem in the midst of the world’s affairs to be preposterous. Yet they are impregnators of the world, vivifiers and animaters of potentialities of goodness which but for them would lie forever dormant.” - William James
Deep gratitude to the love of my life, Diana †, our children Jon Luke and Maudie, my mother and father Abel and Kathy, sister Jackie, and nephew William John for their loving and encouraging presence that night. Their support absolutely means the world.
Thank you to my mother and Emmet King for the photos.
This is dedicated, always, to my ancestors whose story I retell to remember the journey that brought us here and whose mystical, encouraging cloud I sense constantly.
To sister Sandra Jones, a spiritual mother in our lives, I miss you and will keep on, setting my face like flint, for you.