FOCUS | From the Editor
This Summer 2014 issue of Parabola offers glimpses of human beings who embody the spiritual qualities of wisdom, compassion, and service to God. Some, like the Sufi master Barkat Ali, with a flowing grey beard and upright, military bearing, look as you would expect; while others like Raghu Makwana, the son of poor Indian laborers and crippled by polio, shatter comfortable preconceived images. What emerges in these pages is that embodiment is not a fixed state but a process requiring deep listening, honesty, and a willingness to leave the known for the unknown—to leave the realm of familiar ideas and ways of thinking for the wide open territory of living truth. Often such journeys begin with a leap or a push—for some of our contributors they started with illness or loss or pain. For others, it began with a wish or a question: “Can my life be larger than I was led to believe possible?”
There is no telling where the quest might lead. The stories in this issue range from the United States to Haiti, Ireland, Pakistan, India, and China, and often start with making changes in careers and goals and ideas about what is possible. All of them lead home to the depths of our own bodies and hearts. One story in “Embodiment” describes a fresh encounter with Jesus Christ. Others are the stories of ordinary human beings, and they reveal that the path to embodying truth is as endless as it is compelling and worthwhile. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, whose spirit lives on in a group whose work is touched upon here, “my quest continues.” In the words of beloved poet Mary Oliver, who offers new poems in this issue, “Things take the time they take.”
—Tracy Cochran
