[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your excellent essay-post and encouragements!

There is, in truth, no pursuit of joy. It comes as a gift from God, as the dew in the morning and is available to us for as long as we choose to accept it.

So very true!

"Pursuit of happiness" is a Creator endowed inalienable right in the Declaration of Independence. I suspect some people confuse that right to freedom as you have described it - as if it meant Christian joy which as you say is another matter altogether, a gift from God.

I wish the inalienable rights laid out in the DofI had been clarified in the Constitution but at least the courts seem to take the Constitution as flowing from the DofI.

[Louis Foxwell]

That was folish of me. I referred to the Constitution rather than the Declaration of Independence.