“I am 52 years old, and have spent truly the better part of my life out-of-doors but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air and when I turned my face upward I saw a flock of blackbirds rounding a curve I didn't know was there and the sound was simply all those wings just feathers against air, against gravity and such a beautiful winning the whole flock taking a long, wide turn as if of one body and one mind. How do they do that? Oh if we lived only in human society with its cruelty and fear its apathy and exhaustion what a puny existence that would be but instead we live and move and have our being here, in this curving and soaring world so that when, every now and then, mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives and when, even more rarely, we manage to unite and move together toward a common good, and can think to ourselves: ah yes, this is how it's meant to be.” HumanityNatureCommon Good Author:Julie Cadwallader Staub