Late in his life, the philosopher Richard Rorty — a well-known atheist — was asked by an interviewer if he could define holy. Perhaps the interlocutor thought the aging and dying Rorty would be stumped by the question or would fall into some traditional language of reverence. But Rorty was not...

We join our voices in a holy communion of mind and heart, dedicated to the promises that bind us in compassion, one with another. In this hour we light the flame that signals our intention to find the sacred in every living thing.