Daryl Wood's Blog

I’ve been sharing this passage by Molly Dee Rundle for two decades and finding it among my papers today was a gentle reminder. I’m grateful.

“Sometimes we are prisoners in prisons of our own design. We’ve carefully built our walls; we’ve made our prison safe and comfortable, and then we have chosen to lock ourselves inside. And we do not call it a prison at all, we call it our home or work or responsibility. We are very careful to post guards so that nothing threatens the security of our prison. Some of us live and die there and suppose that we have been happy and that living was good.

But sometimes, something or someone happens to us and the walls are shattered, and we lie helpless and exposed … in view are new horizons, new ideas, new experiences. When this happens many of us quickly gather the stones and rebuild our prison and retreat inside, but some few look around and crawl out of the rubble and gaze into the distance and wonder what “stuff” the world is made of. They venture out to taste and smell and feel. These people never build prisons again. They are willing to risk the hurt and possible failure of living and loving and dying with no guarantee of safety. They live with only the promise that there is fullness in living. They take the risk and choose life.”

Molly Dee Rundle