Last night out walking after such plenteous rain, we noticed the grasses and wildflowers were suddenly tall. The clouds rode high, turning orange and violet. A bright-edged crescent moon floated among them—there, then not there, and there again.

In one driveway, young men played basketball with precision dribbles and stutter-step rhythms, utterly absorbed. On one porch, little children sat watching the sky. Everywhere, people walked under the tall trees as darkness gathered, saying hello to strangers, smiling across differences in language and race. We were all out there together.

We are all in this together. Not just in this neighborhood, or this town. But in this divine gift we name with one word—earth—a living, breathing body of which our bodies are a part.

We are one. No longer is this an idealistic vision. It is now our existential situation. And we are coming to our senses, sometimes with deep serenity under leafy maples and sharp-scented pines, as we swing along together on these late summer evenings in the middle of June.