You only live twice:
You only live twice: (parable of the net)
“Under very strange influences and forces are we passing onwards; by hopes and ambitions, by sickness and watching, by anguish and mirth, by the forlorn remembrance of a happy past and the sad forecasting of the future, by occupations that hurry us on from day to day, and by longings that abide with us through life and are never satisfied. And often we would fain escape from the gentle compulsion by which God draws us to our end, and have to remind ourselves that however entangled and tied up we are, and however prevented from our own ways and directions, this present time is after all but the drawing of the net and not the time of our use; that though now debarred from many pursuits we think we might be useful in, and hurried past enjoyments that delight us, we are passing to a shore where there is room and time enough for the fulfilment of every human purpose and the exercise of every human faculty; that after all our sins and follies, after all our pains and anxieties and difficulties, there does most surely come the kingdom of heaven and its glorious liberty. Here we quickly wax old, our freedom of choice and liberty of action are quickly taken from us, we stretch forth our hands and another girds us and carries us whither we would not; but there our youth shall be renewed with all its freedom from care, its spring and energy, its fresh views of truth, its boldness to live and see good days, its purpose for the life that lies before it unsullied; and it shall be again as when “you were young and girded yourself and walked wherever you would.” [Dods, The Parables of Our Lord (Matthew), p. 117-118]
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