We are at liberty to be real or unreal, to be about truth or untruth. We really do have a choice. We are talking here about a felt knowledge, inner awareness, knowings that come out of the quiet, from a deep place within. Our truth is just ours. And we believe it is wise to be leery of anyone who [claims] to hold ALL truth -- even organizations, ministries, and leaders whose values we admire. A part of the journey into freedom is examining the truths upon which we have built our lives and discovering that we have choices about who we follow, where we put our time and money. And our choices, our truths, make us who we are.
~ from “Journey Into Freedom”, a monthly newsletter by Esther Armstrong and Dale Stitt
I wonder what beauty is. I have been seeing lovely things all my life, but they never moved me, never presented themselves so poignantly as they have done since I entered into adversity. Now beauty appears as something more than itself. It seems to me a gateway into God. the thrilling, moving, tremendous thing about it is not the especial aspect under which it appears, not the tree, the flower the bird note at dusk, but the occasional sense of otherwhereness, of something more, a marvelous Something — complete ecstasy — that beauty half reveals... It is this overpowering Something, hidden in the midst of beauty, that moves one so exquisitely, tears the heart out, almost terrifies at times by its nearness — "Oh Ecstasy behind the grass, come softly when Thou comest nigh!"
