Despite repeated breaches of trust, Papa found the courage and humility to forgive those who betrayed or hurt him again and again: "I would rather trust and be betrayed, than to live in mistrust." He never tired of preaching forgiveness or pointing out that when people spend their lives harboring grudges, they become crippled by unwittingly binding themselves to the person they cannot forgive. They are imprisoned, yet they refuse to take the key of forgiveness out of their own pocket and unlock the door.
~ from I TELL YOU A MYSTERY by Johann Christoph Arnold
It sometimes seems to me that holiness, the quintessence of holiness, is as elusive as that strange fragrance in the air which heralds spring. We cannot define precisely where the scent lies, nor analyze exactly the color of the bird, nor yet assign to an
invisible musical scale the plaintive bleat of the lamb, nor to a paint box the fleeting blue of the sky: a stirring in the blood, an impulse toward adventure, rough
moorland, woodland paths... No, holiness is not to be defined. It is a living, glorious rebirth...an active condition, not a struggle with or against self, but a struggle for self, to bring oneself back, back to that pure and fragrant spring of our creation.
