The "Kumulipo" is an old Hawaiian prayer chant that poetically describes the creation of the world. The word literally means "beginning-in-deep-darkness." Here darkness doesn't connote gloom and evil. Rather, it's about the inscrutability of the embryonic state; the obscure chaos that reigns before germination.

Please take good care of it all, OK? Be an enlightened monarch who treats your domain with reverent responsibility. And make sure you also enjoy the full measure of fun that comes with such mastery. Glide through life as if all of creation is yearning to honor and entertain you.

BLASPHEMOUS REVERENCE. Acting on the knowledge that the most efficacious form or devotion to the Divine Wow is tinctured with playful or mischievous behavior that prevents the buildup of fanaticism.

I will never again cast a curse on myself.

Can you imagine what it would feel like to become aware of an omnipresent ocean of wild divine love that has always been a secret to you in the same way that the sea is invisible to a fish?

We need radical curiosity and reverent pranks, voracious listening and ferocious thanks.

The average American child sees 20,000 murders in TV before reaching age 18. This is considered normal. Every community has video rental stores filled with multimillion-dollar films that depict people doing terrible things to each other. If you read newspapers, you have every right to believe that Bad Nasty Things compose 90 percent of the human experience. But you will be hard-pressed to find more than a few novels, films, news stories, and TV shows that dare to depict life as a gift whose purpose is to enrich the human soul.