top of page
Search

Excerpted Inspirations #211

  • Writer: Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
    Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
  • 6 days ago
  • 0 min read
[Faithful Crocker has walked far and slept rough to study at Oxford in Elizabethan England.] The windows faced east and sitting up on his flock mattress, hugging his knees, he looked out across the quadrangle to the tower of Christ Church, outlined sharply against the sheeted gold of the sunrise. He could tell by the feel of the cold air that it was very early yet and he need not get up for a little while … He could sit and gloat. He was a scholar of Christ Church. He had got what he wanted and he was so utterly and completely happy that he felt as though he had been born again. He realized that his experience was unique, that not many people got what they longed for, or if they did get it, liked it when they had it. He was intensely grateful to whatever gods there be that he had been allowed this satisfaction. Perhaps, he thought, his present joys would not always satisfy; there would be fresh hungers, and he would set out on new journeys toward goals that he might never reach; but at least, he thought, the fact that he had once been satisfied made life worth while. Nothing in life, he thought, is so lovely as fresh beginnings, and nothing breeds more courage. He saw all the fresh beginnings in a man’s life burning like prophetic torches along the way, crying aloud the good news in the charactery of flame upon darkness, and the little figure of man passing from darkness into light and then into darkness again, until it disappeared at the end of the journey into a blaze of light to which those torches that had seemed so bright were as night’s candles to the light of day. Elizabeth Goudge, Towers in the Mist (1938) compiled in Three Cities of Bells (1965) p. 276

 
 
 
  • Black YouTube Icon
  • Black Facebook Icon

The views expressed on this website are the opinions of their authors, and may not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other author, agency, or organization, including Deborah's Tree.


©2020 by DEBORAH'S TREE. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page