At its best, journalism shows you what is not in the news. It transports you, disrupts your equilibrium and forces you to question what is and what could be.

In this issue of Flux, we invite you to travel into the lives of people who do not fit into the boxes society tries to construct around them. A woman surviving a lifetime of sexual exploitation stays in the neighborhood that stole her childhood, helping other women escape the streets. Men who are often labeled as deviants donate their time and money to help the battered, the abandoned and the dying. A poet fighting a battle against breast cancer faces the camera to break the silence and shame surrounding the disease. And along the trails of Oregon's Cascade mountains, two sisters offer people with physical restrictions a chance to hold freedom in their hands.

The greatest teachers are those whose lives are their lectures. In these pages, we offer you the opportunity to hear their stories and to reconsider what it means to be a victim, a survivor, a hero, a freak. Being different is the gift these people were given, and it is the gift they give back. Through their faith, hope and charity, they change the world around them.

Journalism allows us to share in the sorrows and triumphs of people's lives and to communicate what we learn to the world. The men and women in these stories dare us to challenge our perceptions, catch a glimpse of life along the edges and understand a little more about ourselves.

Their lives are a testament to the grace and strength of the human spirit. Their lesson is captured in the image of a child who will never walk, sitting high in the saddle with the wind in her face: If you believe in yourself, if you reach high enough, you can touch the sky.