Today is cool and grey, the beginnings of summer.

Across the one globe we inhabit there are wars (Sri Lanka, Sudan, Afghanistan), refugee camps for years at a time (Darfur, Palestine, Sri Lanka), shanty towns (in many cities). And, always, there are babies being born, and people living, loving, working, and dying. Above us each night the silent stars trace their circle, bright, far off, yet strangely close.

The earth is so beautiful and varied. It is sad we cannot live at peace. But maybe staying peaceful for just a single day is difficult ... for anyone.

Years ago I lived on a paradisical beach inhabited by travellers who had fled the west in search of a simpler life. Was it paradise indeed?

Well, it could have been, but there were drug sales, people exploiting each other, acts of violence, and cases of new and existing mental illness.

We seem to bring something into any earthly paradise that upsets its given harmony and belies its generous beauty. If this is true of palm-fringed, white sand beaches, where coconuts, papaya, and fish abounded, how much more difficult in an urban sprawl, whose trees are grubby with carbon monoxide?

Still, why yearn for paradise at all, if we do not have some nostalgia and hope for it, and occasionally glimpse it in the company of friends, or alone in the landscape under a big sky?

Also, many anonymous people cope with their own suffering or the daily care of others. Their nobility and quiet courage are harbingers of Paradise. These folk give hope of something better, reminding us of our latent capabilities.

So, patience, vigilance and gratitude are worthwhile and find their reward.