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Excerpted Inspirations #214

  • Writer: Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
    Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
  • 4 hours ago
  • 0 min read
[Continued from last week. Van is telling a true story of his dogs to illustrate the doctrine of the Fall.] The Master loved her [Gypsy] still but trusted her no longer. In time she lived in a pen and went for walks with a rope round her neck. All her real freedom was gone. But the Master gave her, from time to time, new chances to obey of her own free will. Had she chosen to obey she would once again have had perfect freedom to wander her hundreds of acres. But she did not return to the obedience. She always chose, if she were out of reach, to run away. The Master, knowing hunger would bring her back to her pen, let her run. He could have stopped her: the rifle that would have ended her rebellion with the crack of doom stood in the corner. But while she lived she might still return to the obedience, might still choose the obedience that was freedom. One day, during a journey by car, Gypsy and her good little daughter, Flurry, were taken into the edge of a wood. Always Gypsy had limited her disobedience to her own hills. But now, coming back to the car, she felt the old thrill. She turned and fled. The Master called with a note of sharp urgency. Flurry, with the courtesy that always ruled her, came at once. Gypsy, her ears dulled to the meanings of the Master, continued her rush into the dark forest. After hours of search and calling, the Master sadly abandoned the lost one and, with Flurry beside him, went home. There Flurry continued to live in freedom under the obedience. She was right joyous to be with the Master and gay when she did a thing that pleased him. She knew that in his service was perfect freedom. She obeyed gladly of her own free choice. But lost Gypsy, if she still lived, wandered the woods and roads an outcast. She became dirty and matted with burrs. No doubt stones were thrown at her and she was often hungry, but she had lost the way home. If she had puppies, they, too, and their children had lost the way home, for Gypsy’s perilous and bent will to disobey must infect them; and the comforting hand of the Master would be unknown to them, except as a tale. This is the way Gypsy chose on the Day of the Rabbit and continued to choose until, suddenly, there was no more choosing. * * * * * When I had done telling this tale of Horsebite Hall, all the students wanted to pat Flurry, a tribute that she was only too pleased to accept. And the parable evidently made sense to them; years later, some of them would say that they still thought of Gypsy whenever there was a reference to the Fall. -Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy (1977), pp. 133-134

 
 
 

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