Happy Oaks Day! It might not be the Derby, but it's the day Kentuckians head to the track. No school, half-day at work, a day to taste-test your julep recipe. 
Today marks the 5oth anniversary of Thomas Merton's epiphany on the corner of 4th & Walnut:"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race … there is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun."
"I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all of the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed..."
