The setting is Al's place, a beautiful and peaceful home in the mountains. Each person brings personal experience and questions.
One man's brother was killed in Tower One. He's considering joining the CIA as a response. His girlfriend is not convinced; she knows that we all feel compelled to act at a time like this, but wonders how we can do so in a way that doesn't just make matters worse.
Al's sister experienced the misery of displaced Mayan Indians in Guatemala many years ago. She's been trying ever since to make sense of this brutal, beautiful world and her place in it.
Al's brother died in Vietnam, so Al too experienced pain and bewilderment. His response was to study and explore for years, combining his own questions and ideas with those of great thinkers in an effort to find a way for people to sustain themselves and each other humanely.
This weekend Al will explain to his relatives humanity's option for success -- and why, for the first time in history, this option is possible. Their world will begin to take shape and finally fuse into a hopeful vision as they learn a pragmatic, science-based triumph of the human spirit is now both possible and necessary.
The real events are well documented and referenced. The characters are fictional but you might find them very, very familiar.