Quotations for feral explorers
Posted by Henry
The Journey by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
''Mend my life!''
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Elizabeth Goudge
Oftener than not what we call beginnings are fulfillments of things set in motion a long time ago... Other things are on their way to us as well, things we neither anticipated nor, in some cases, could even imagine, and we will meet them and be changed by them. So its good to nourish a profound curiosity as to what God was going to do with us next, and the desire to be able to recognise it as it came to us, and to meet it with imagination & courage of heart.
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
''Mend my life!''
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Elizabeth Goudge
Oftener than not what we call beginnings are fulfillments of things set in motion a long time ago... Other things are on their way to us as well, things we neither anticipated nor, in some cases, could even imagine, and we will meet them and be changed by them. So its good to nourish a profound curiosity as to what God was going to do with us next, and the desire to be able to recognise it as it came to us, and to meet it with imagination & courage of heart.
