Divinum Sustinieri: A Philosophy for the 21st Century and Beyond

Part One: The Birth of a Global Philosophy

Divine Sustainability

An acrostic: DIVINUM SUSTINIERI

D ivine will of the Universe

I ntent on preserving balance

V isualizing with this verse

I nterconnectedness of life's dance

N ew souls awakening to this sacred geometry

U nderstanding this natural divine symmetry

M arking the irrelevance of chance

S eeking the balance within each person

U nderstanding that they are part of all

S ustainable life with all is the reason

T reading through the world, heeding the call

I ntent on living sustainably with the land

N ew ways of building in harmony with reason

I ntertwined with an edible forest for all

E nergized by the Sun and the Seasons

R evered divinity and bounty for all

I n this dream made reality – to understand

Billy W. Mitchell,  02/18/2014

About the Author

At 7:05 PM on October 3, 1970 in a hospital in Houston, Texas a lone soul uttered his first wailing cry. He could not then understand why his mother would choose to give him up for adoption or even why, when adopted by another family member, that he would be given back to the adoption agency some weeks or months later. Billy Wayne Wells was not destined to be. Billy Wayne Mitchell, on the other hand, would have some important work ahead of him. The work he would do might not be life-saving advances in medicine or land-mark civil rights trials. He might not even win the Nobel Peace Prize or paint a monumental work of art. His life would touch the people it was meant to touch, though, and that is all we can truly hope for...and it is enough. It is all I can hope for. I can live out the life I was meant to.

I have never blamed my birth mother for giving me up for adoption. I'm sure she had her reasons and, honestly, they are none of my business. I was eventually adopted by parents who already had a son and a daughter. Even knowing that I was an adopted child, none of them ever treated me as anything more or less than part of the family. I can truly say that I have never felt adopted. My adopted mother and father, Mary and Ted Mitchell Sr., were great parents and my brother Teddy and sister Deneen were constant companions and the greatest of friends.

My mother told me when she adopted me that she always knew that she was destined to have three children, but after the birth of her second child, my sister, there were complications with the birth and she lost the ability to have more children. She never gave up hope, though. She became a foster mother and worked with emotionally troubled children. Because of the failed adoption with my birth family members, I was classified as one of these emotionally troubled children. Once I was placed with my adopted mother at the age of two years, she knew at once that I was her third child.

My mother, being a very religious person, petitioned the adoption agency to have me baptized in the Lutheran Christian faith and won. I believe that I was the first foster child in the Houston area, maybe even the whole state of Texas, to be baptized by a foster parent. Two years after I came to live with the Mitchell's, we went before a Harris County judge and finalized my adoption. It was like being born again. We even celebrated with an adoption day cake, which was made to look like a little green turtle. I remember when my mother and I would go grocery shopping or to the department store that I would tell people, "This is my mother!"