"A Rose and Spider Web for America's Troubled Heart" is a story of how America drifted into our current political, economic, and social predicament, a story of what we may have lost during this process, and a story of what we may need to learn or relearn to fulfill the great promise of America. I offer no absolute plan, but a direction. It is my intention to reveal some of the many strands of our confusion and thus to help clarify the issues that divide us. It is not my intention to tell you what to think, but to present you with concrete issues to think about. Each chapter focuses on a specific facet of American life; together they present a progressive unfolding of America's current social dilemma. Like a stories, my book has an exposition (Not Too Long Ago, We Knew What We Were About) that illustrates the values of our parents or grandparents as they defined their lives and families. The complication (Then, We Succumbed to the Lures of Technology and Materialism)describes the impact of technological challenges to our social lives. The rising action (And Fell Victim to the Conflicts of the Times) establishes the ways the words of our national institutions can divide us into warring camps. The climax (Finally, We Experienced A Fundamental Revolution in Knowledge) examines the discoveries of the new physics that proclaimed the limitations of both empiricism and rationalism and introduced us to a universe seeming beyond comprehension. Sharing no common vision of physical reality, we are a divided people, anxiously trying to survive with only our personal faiths. The falling action (Therefore, We Need to Retool Our Minds) identifies credible ways for us to use empiricism and rationalism in what seems to be an irrational world. The resolution (And Reestablish Grounded Values for Our Hearts) dramatizes plausible solutions that might serve as premises for a new common vision of reality. It may be possible that an intimate experience with mortality may help us feel the essence of beauty and to re-experience arete and agape, the rhythmic beats of the divine heart of reality. America's history, especially since World II, is a dramatic illustration of the social confusion created by the subtle yet resonant changes in our ideas of life, death, and social norms. We must be forever young, but who is to rear the children?"