Eden was alluring. Perennial sunshine and honey scented bowers with bubbling streams and rippling laughter. Laughing and skipping, sometimes running and dancing I ran in. I didn’t know when the gates slammed shut behind me, making me a prisoner inside.
As the shackles grew on my hand and feet, as the sunshine dimmed from day to day, as the scent gave way to a dark gloomy smell… the laughter I heard was mocking, not rippling.
Oh! Misery! too late I felt to cut the bonds and run, too late to scream for help from without, too late I feared – too late! I had to be free, I looked for ways, I worried and fretted night and day.
Then with rough tools and rougher skills, driven by my fierce desire, working with neither rest nor food, I forged behold, a key!
The key to my freedom, my happiness and my life was in my clasp at last, I cherished it.
Possessed and possessing I delighted in my new found joy. Fie on the doubts that then began to creep in. So what if I were free? Would the sun still shine outside, were the streams still there? If the scents still existed were my senses too dulled?
At least in bondage there was security. At least if I couldn’t go out nothing could ever come in!
‘Don’t do it’ whispered the shadows in the trees. ‘Don’t try it’ they cried, ‘you’ll regret it, you’ll see’. To be free or to be safe? would it work or would fail? I held the key with mixed feelings.
I started and finally took the plunge. With all the courage that I could summon and a lot that I could not, I turned the key in the lock…
Today, the warm rays of the sun touch my battle scarred face, my hair plays delightedly with the wind. My feet have learned to walk again.
I know how good it was to be safe. But, by God, how much better to be free!
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“Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security”.
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