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.
I grew up in this forest and I knew
These giant trees when they were nothing more than
Than slender saplings swaying in the wind;
Sought solitude, delighted in the lore
Of nature, who became my teacher first;
Walked down trails where sun and shadow meet,
Through silence softly tucked about the days;
Traced the twists and turns of every creek.
Stepping lightly through the after-glow,
Amid the falling flakes of silver white,
Belonging to the moment and the mood,
Another little creature of the night,
With quickened breath, ears attuned, who stood
... Sensing God within this winter wood!