Before I finished speaking, Steve applauded us. "You both haven't counted correctly," he said, grinning as he always does when he has something up his sleeve. "You both forgot to count Anton and Nicolai, and Erica, Helen, and Olive, which are all a part of this family, aren't they? They have all helped to shape our family into what it became, by their contributions in ideas, by their love, by their commitment to uplift humanity. So what does it matter that they are not all physically present? What has this got to do with anything, right? Their humanity is lodged in our hearts as if they were here. That makes them a part of this family. When children move away from home, don't they continue to be a part of the family?"

      Moments later, Steve added that we should follow Helen's lead, who had counted Nicholas of Cusa as a part of her family, and Leibnitz, and others, because of their contributions to her life. Steve suggested that we had already more than two dozen in our immediate family, if we followed Helen's example, and that we would soon stop counting.



      Having been attracted by the glow of the sunset, Steve, Ushi, and almost everybody else, had joined us on the upper deck. Sylvia had invited Steve and Ushi to join our discussion as soon as he had come to the upper deck. Eventually all the others joined in.

      Evidently, the time had come to explore our status towards each other as a 'universal' family, as Steve saw us. He pointed out that we were all living together on this ship, and this closely united by a commitment to truly enrich one another's existence as an element of the principle of universal love. He called this a monumental step forward, but only a step towards an infinite horizon that still remains largely unexplored.

      Steve pointed out that Sylvia had actually been correct on two counts, when she suggested that there was something still missing in our growing family. He told her that he liked the metaphor of the roses, but that he saw the metaphor in a higher context. He said that the metaphor of the roses should not only be perceived quantitatively, but also qualitatively. The increased quantity of the roses must be seen to correspond to an increased scientific and spiritual development that enriches everyone's existence and raises the quality of living. He said that spiritual and scientific development has the potential to make one's life as full and as profound, as a bouquet of two dozen roses seems to promise.

      "The acknowledged marriage of all of us," said Steve, "into a universal family, merely reflects that kind of development that has been in progress for over a dozen years. Since this has been the founding principle of our family, the focus on that principle must continue to be the driving force in the further unfolding of this family," Steve added. "The focus on adding children should be a secondary concern. It's not that children are unimportant, and we need many of them, but they just shouldn't be the driving force in a quantitative sense. Bearing children should unfold from the imperatives of the higher principles that we involve ourselves with."

      Steve suggested that we were all still like children ourselves, exploring our world, and coming to terms with those higher principles of human existence. He likened us to pioneers. "The old standards that we have lived by in the past simply don't work anymore," said Steve. "We have outgrown them. The more advanced forms of civilization require the involvement of more and more people. This means more children, maybe sixteen children for our family."

      Steve reminded us of what Erica had said many times in Caracas, that the advancing development of mankind requires constantly greater inputs of energy and materials into the productive processes. She had told us many times, that in order to create these larger resources for modern living, ever higher levels of technologies have to be achieved, and for that a constantly expanding population is required as a human resource to develop and operate the expanding technologies that correspond to advanced ideas.

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Stories about  Healing from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche