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Excerpted Inspirations #168

Writer's picture: Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz KufsLinda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
18 hours ago0 min read

He remembered suddenly, at this moment, as he looked at the squares of moonlight lying on the floor, the time when he had first realized that pain is a thing that we must face and come to terms with if life is to be lived with dignity and not merely muddled through like an evil dream. It had been when his father was dying. His mother had not troubled over much to keep him out of the sight and sound of his father’s pain; she had thought he was too little to understand. But he had understood. [...] Terrified by it he had fled to the dark attic, slammed the door and flung himself down sobbing on the floor. He had sobbed for an hour, sobbed himself sick and exhausted until at last, childlike, he had forgotten what it was he was crying about and had become instead absorbed in the moonlight on the floor. It had been like a pool of silver, enclosed and divided up into neat squares by the bars of the window. He had counted the squares and the lines, dark and light, and had been delighted with them. He had touched each with his finger, this way and that, and had been utterly comforted. [... L]ater, in bed, he had been comforted once more by the thought of that pattern. In some vague way he had understood that dark things are necessary; without them the silver moonlight would just stream away into nothingness, but with them it can be held and arranged into beautiful squares. Elizabeth Goudge, The Bird in the Tree (1940) pp. 96-97

 
 
 

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