| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: and my course was arranged under his supervision.
I did not go home for my first summer vacation, but stayed
in Lincoln, working off a year's Greek, which had been my only
condition on entering the freshman class. Cleric's doctor advised
against his going back to New England, and, except for a few
weeks in Colorado, he, too, was in Lincoln all that summer.
We played tennis, read, and took long walks together.
I shall always look back on that time of mental awakening
as one of the happiest in my life. Gaston Cleric introduced
me to the world of ideas; when one first enters that world
everything else fades for a time, and all that went before
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Do you mean to say you can save us from those awful Phanfasms,
and Growleywogs and Whimsies?" asked Dorothy eagerly.
"I'm sure of it, my dear," asserted the Scarecrow, still smiling genially.
"Tell us how!" cried the Tin Woodman.
"Not now," said the Scarecrow. "You may all go to bed, and I advise
you to forget your worries just as completely as if you had drunk of
the Water of Oblivion in the Forbidden Fountain. I'm going to stay
here and tell my plan to Ozma alone, but if you will all be at the
Forbidden Fountain at daybreak, you'll see how easily we will save the
kingdom when our enemies break through the crust of earth and come
from the tunnel."
The Emerald City of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: and to be with Christ. Nothing would be more welcome to us than early death,
knowing that it would spell the end of all our miseries and the beginning of
all our happiness. Yes, if a person could perfectly believe this he would not
long remain alive. The anticipation of his joy would kill him.
But the law of the members strives against the law of the mind, and makes
perfect joy and faith impossible. We need the continued help and comfort of
the Holy Spirit. We need His prayers. Paul himself cried out: "O wretched man
that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The body of this
death spoiled the joy of his spirit. He did not always entertain the sweet and
glad expectation of his heavenly inheritance. He often felt miserable.
This goes to show how hard it is to believe. Faith is feeble, because the flesh
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