"We are at one of those moments in history when it seems as if the tectonic plates are shifting. We are living through years in which a crisis has overtaken our increasingly globalized world, such as most of us have not seen in our lifetimes. The questions strike at the root of what we have taken for granted for at least a quarter of a century.

"I am the Way" - a path prepared.

"I am the Truth" - light to reveal the path.

"I am the Life" - strength to tread the path.

What is this True and Living Way which Christ embodies? From the beginning Christians were called those who belonged to the Way. (Acts 9:2) What kind of Way is it?

In fact, reminders that we are dust, that life is fleeting and death inevitable, are as common to poets as to priests; the sentiment is not especially a religious one. So the Persian astronomer-poet, Omar Khayyam - (or, perhaps, his English "translator" Edward Fitzgerald) - wrote:

"Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into dust descend;
Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie,
Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and - sans End."

To add to his assertions, he characterized those who offered another entry to God as criminals. "I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber." (John 10:1) The inference is that those who seek to influence the children of God toward another faith, or way of thinking, are like sheep-stealers who kill and destroy the fullness of life that he guarantees.