Joy is our goal, our destiny. We cannot know who we are except in joy. Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things can be. Joy is not necessarily what happens when things unfold according to our own plans... Joy demands that we have the audacity to embrtavce the knowledge of just howbeautiful we really are and how infinitely powerful we are right now -- without changing a thing -- through the grace that's consistently born and reborn in us.
We see the face of God daily, easily recognizable in a spectacular sunset or in a child's smile. And it also exists in less attractive presentations. Can we accept seeing God in the person of our "enemy"? If we can't, we are doomed to propagating lives of hatred and revenge. Only when we see the face of God in everyone and in all things will we be at peace within ourselves and, more importantly, enable peace to exist throughout the world.