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The Hiding Place by Dutch woman Corrie ten Boom is the true story of Corrie and her family who hide and help Jews during World War II.  As a result, their house is raided and the family is put into prison.  Incredibly, her faith is strengthened by the experience and after release and recovery, she opens a home for people affected by the war, which was a dream of her sister's who passed away in a camp.  This quote is about that home and the healing process.

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"And, sure enough, in their own time and their own way, people worked out the deep pain within them.  It most often started, as Betsie [Corrie's sister] had known it would, in the garden.  As flowers bloomed or vegetables ripened, talk was less of the bitter past, more of tomorrow's weather.  As their horizons broadened, I would tell them about the people living in the Beje [her house], people who never had a visitor, never a piece of mail.  When mention of the NSBers [the Dutch arm of the Nazi party] no longer brought on a volley of self-righteous wrath, I knew the person's healing was not far away.  and the day he said, "Those people you spoke of - I wonder if they'd care for some homegrown carrots," then I knew the miracle had taken place."  The Hiding Place, pp. 429-430, emphasis added

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"I was struck by [Joseph] Campbell's remark [in a television program] that we serve the world by being spiritually well.  The first questions are not: "How much do we do?" or "How many people do we help out?" but "Are we interiorly at peace?"  Campbell confirmed by own conviction that the distinction between contemplation and action can be misleading.  Jesus' actions flowed from his interior communion with God."  Henri Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey, March 15

The "land flowing with milk and honey" actually describes a barren and desolate land, out of control of man and reverting to the weeds and briars from which bees can gather nectar.  Ploughed fields, trimmed hedgerows and well weeded crops have no attraction for the beekeeper or his bees, and where can cattle go when every vineyard is carefully fenced?  Milk and honey flow where man is not very prosperous in the usual sense, but where he lives well and lives long.

Diana Lancaster, There's a Cow in my Garden, page 73

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