In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the centre of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, or spurious isolation in a special world....This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud....It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes terrible mistakes; yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstakes....There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun....There are no strangers....The gate of heaven is everywhere.

--Thomas Merton