We can see this in the moving words delivered by sports broadcaster on the day of baseball great Mickey Mantle's interment. Here, Costas lionizes the late Yankee slugger but does so with a grain of honesty that invokes forgiveness for the flaws in a human relationship. For Mantle, Costas tells, beyond the adulation and admiration, "he got something far more meaningful. He got love. Love for what he had been, love for what he made us feel, love for the humanity and sweetness that was always there mixed in the flaws and all the pain that racked his body and his soul." (Costas, p. 1)

For our mother nature, pain has sadly been a defining feature of her experience. Like the great maternal nurturer who sends her children into the world to make their fortune, she has selflessly given of herself until there is nothing left to sacrifice. And even...
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