The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Awareness, like grace itself, is always freely being offered -- but it is a living and sensitive thing. It does not take kindly to being ignored or abused. If one does not pay attention to the presence of the holy in the very midst of daily life, it simply withdraws (or, more accurately, we discover that we have withdrawn ourselves from it!); and it may be a long and weary time before we find again that particular facet of Truth which would have been such a great help to the very next stage of our journeys.