| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: good works, and live in sin, and serve the world-ruler of them
that are dragged downward, and waste their time in pleasures and
lusts: but rather be well assured that these are dead and defunct
in the activity of life. For a wise man hath fitly called sin
the death of the immortal soul. And the Apostle also saith,
'When ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from
righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye
are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now
being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have
your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.'"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: camp not far away. Grossmutter Pflugel had sat at that
window many a bitter winter night, with her baby in her
arms, watching and waiting for the young husband who was
urging his ox-team across the ice of Lake Michigan in the
teeth of a raging blizzard.
The little, low-ceilinged room was very still. I
looked at Alma Pflugel standing there at the window in
her neat blue gown, and something about the face and
figure--or was it the pose of the sorrowful head?--seemed
strangely familiar. Somewhere in my mind the resemblance
haunted me. Resemblance to--what? Whom?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: distant, well over on the East coast, and the day was as
hot as a bath.
"'Whatever happens," said Allo, while our ponies
grunted along, "I want you to remember me."
"'I shall not forget," said Pertinax. "You have cheated
me out of my breakfast."
"What is a handful of crushed oats to a Roman?" he
said. Then he laughed his laugh that was not a laugh.
"What would you do if you were a handful of oats being
crushed between the upper and lower stones of a mill?"
"'I'm Pertinax, not a riddle-guesser," said Pertinax.
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