letters from barabbas

Of course, it never seems to do much good. Your newly realized self--I don't say "new self" because I'm firmly convinced the self is newer every day--is shocked to see the buildings are the same as you left them. Your friends, though new themselves, are nonetheless new within old circumstances, as are you, and you resign yourself to reality. You settle for an average of newness and oldness, something different but only slightly so, in ways you'd least expected.

You don't actually pierce through the layer of clouds into the normal atmosphere. Rather, you simply enter the fog of everyday life.

This is why conferences and getaways and things of that nature are so disappointing. We are looking for miracles. And they come--more readily than we could ever imagine. We just don't know how to see them. Or see beyond them.