Two Roads...

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

(My Brother-in-law's Dad's favourite Poem)

Allison treasured the quietness and sat for a long time,

watching the small fish rise and take the flies that touched the surface.

Each time one rose for a fly, the action sent a perfect ripple over the

water that spread until it reached the banks at her feet.

Picking up a stone, she tossed it in and watched the ripples-perfect,

simple, clean. She began to toss more stones and noticed that

while one stone made a simple pattern, two of them

would send a ripple that touched and broke apart.

And when she threw a handful of them, the patterns grew so

complex that the simple circle could not be seen at all.

That's what I would like life to be-simple! But it's not.

Oh, that I were back home, milking the cow, cooking for the family.

That was so simple! But life is like the water when you throw in a

handful of stones-everything's so confused.

~ The Winds of God by Gilbert Morris

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and His schoolmasters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn't call his father and mother "Father" and "Mother", but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians and teetotallers and wore a special sort of underclothes . I n their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on the beds and the windows were always open.

~From The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis~

I once had all of this memorized because I listened to the book on tape so many times.

The Shepherd's Castle

All her senses now fully awake, she was engulfed by the

memory of her feelings when first she came down into the place.

A vivid picture of exactly what the darkness was hiding from

her caused the tide of terror to further rise and soon threaten

to become altogether monstrous. It began to thunder, first with a low,

distant, muttering roll, then with a loud and near bellowing.

Some people are strangely terrified at thunder, but Arctura had

never been; and now it comforted her as with the assurance

that God was near and as she lay and listened to the great

organ of the heavens, to her spirit it seemed to grow articulate;

God seemed to be calling to her and saying, "Here I am, my child!

Do not be afraid." Then she reasoned with herself that the

worst that could happen to her was to lie there till she died of

hunger, and that could not be so very bad.

~The Shepherd's Castle By George McDonald

The Shepherd's Castle

"When the storm is upon us," said Donal as they rose from their crouching position,

"it seems as if there never could be anymore sunshine; but our hopelessness does not keep back the sun when his hour to shine is come."

"I understand," said Arctura. "When one is miserable, misery seems the law

of being. There is some thought which it seems nothing can ever set right;

but all at once it is gone - broken up and gone like that hail cloud."

"Do you know why things so often come right?" said Donal.

"I think I know what you are thinking, but I do not want to answer." said Arctura.

"Why do things come right so often, Davie, do you think?" Repeated Donal.

"Is it," returned Dave, "because they were made right to begin with?"

"There is much in that, Davie, but there is a better reason than that.

It is because things are all alive, and the life at the heart of them, that which keeps

them going, is the great, beautiful God. So the sun forever returns after the clouds."

"You speak always like one who has suffered," said Arctura, with a kind look up at him.

"Who has not that lives at all?" "That is how you are able to help others? I am very glad to hear it. My ambition would be to help other people." "You make it sound as if you have no ambition?"

"Where your work is laid out for you, there is no room for ambition. You have got your work to do..."

-George MacDonald's The Shepherd's Castle