The Path of the Here and Now

Strong currents of change are sweeping over man's world these days. The political sphere is a mass of confusion as governments great and small are being rocked by scandal or plagued by economic ills, and bloody revolutions rend the lives of millions.

The challenge of the title and this first sentence to this post is that it was published in the SUNRISE magazine, February 1977.

This fact is not all that comes to haunt us as the first paragraph continues on to ask still relevant questions: What force could be impelling mankind to give vent to the powerful creative and destructive energies so evident today? Are man's knowledge and power reaching the boiling-over point, beyond which lies a nightmare of social and moral chaos? Or are we entering an era of intense inner growth and advancement?

I have one more question I would like to add as we ponder our fate: Do you have the answers?

There is much more to this article, but I would like to close this post with the first two sentences of Mr. Dougherty's second paragraph as he writes: Whatever form the consequences may eventually take, each one of us will unavoidably help to shape them. For despite the countless inequities in the present distribution of material wealth and power, the true cause of today's turmoil lies, not in the outer life of mankind, but in the inner life of each individual.