Prelude

The first prelude is a personal remembrance of Father Francis Klein, a Cistercian monk and abbot of Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, where he was active in land conservation activities in the Lowcountry region. Francis was a “marginalist,” someone who, in following and exploring his or her fundamental passions and ways of life—whether they be religious, philosophical, scientific, naturalist, artistic, political, or other—encounters and recognizes in what he or she takes to be ultimate reality a final significance, meaning goodness (value) or sacredness. The marginalist recognizes a reality that is much wider than the self and embraces all things. Reality can be understood in innumerable ways, and the seeker can interpret the ultimate in equally innumerable ways. We need to spawn more and more marginalists, a whole next generation, with civic communities local, regional, national, and global that genuinely come to welcome and cherish their marginalist critics. This may be the only way that we can realistically hope to protect the imperfect but wildly valuable and good realm of earthly being to which we inextricably, perhaps without reminder, belong.