A government of the people,
by the people,
and for the people,
is not a machine to be operated
with maximum efficiency,
nor a business to be regulated
according to principles of profit and loss.
It is a structure that emerges from
the heart of the people,
and this heart must be given priority
so that it designates the values
that the government must uphold.
Strategies of success have a part to
play in policies and outcomes.
Yet, these must bow before those directions
which involve integrity of purpose
and quality of conscience,
for these are the true means by which
a government represents the people
and its heart.
When we think of government
as a mechanical operation that can be run
efficiently by inserting the right figures
and calculations,
or run by a leader who claims enlightened rule,
we lose sight of the sacred mandate
that is the quality of heart which arises
from the people,
and which maintains the virtue
of those who govern.
This quality of heart must be preserved
at all costs and in the face of all that
would thwart it.
For the government of the people,
by the people,
and for the people is a Divine mandate,
and must be sustained not in name only,
but in the ways of love
that lie at its roots.
This Divine mandate has given rise
to democracy,
and it is this mandate and its love
that must be cherished above all else,
so that what was founded in light,
and conceived in sacredness
shall remain faithful to that purpose,
and shall not perish from the Earth.