“Life moves at a deeper level than the objective and the data of our senses. We are most alive when we are brought face to face with the response of the deepest thing in us to the deepest thing in life. Consider the hackneyed illustration of the beautiful sunset! We see the sunset, we recognize color, shape, the general quality of the atmosphere—to these we respond. Then when in the midst of all of this something else emerges—the sunset opens a door in and to us, to another dimension, timeless in quality, that can be described only as ineffable, awe-inspiring—then we know radical amazement. This we know in prayer at its best and highest. Then we pass through all the external aspects of our situation and need, then the walls of our pretensions are swept away, and we are literally catapulted out of the narrow walls that shut us in. We experience radical amazement. Spirit is met by Spirit and we are whole again!”

–Howard Thurman, The Inward Journey, pg. 19-20