During my growing up years, pencils and pens corralled me. First came doodling, then note taking to help me focus. Habit contained more than me, resulting in stacks of journals filled with sermon and lecture notes.
Today I reread notes from last fall, when Mark Sargent, former Provost at Gordon College, returned to campus. Mark earned MVP on Jud’s team, respected and loved by all privileged to work with or for him.
Speaking so soon after November’s historic, divisive election, Mark delivered his lecture on Lives of Imagination with wisdom and grace. His quote from George Eliot’s, Middlemarch, remains in bold print on paper and heart.
“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
Lent, if we choose, creates room to reflect on faithful folks who’ve marked our lives, stayed evil’s reach.
Goodness knows how and where.
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Thanks for sharing that great quote & thanks to Mark for bringing it to your attention!
AND a great challenge for the remainder of Lent, Jan … I will begin my reflections …
Be Blessed!
Shirley
Eliot’s words, noted by Mark Sargent, have never been truer than they are in our own time.
Your wisdom and eloquence combined with Mark’s wisdom and eloquence are a gift from God for this Lenten Season. Gracias!
Thanks Jan. I think we will be surprised by whom God rewards in His Kingdom – those without trophies or titles, but faithful in living a life of grace.
Love, Dale
Love the Middlemarch quote and loved reading Middlemarch during our stay in Oxford, England, ’95-’96. That was the year I read much of Jane Austen, the Brontes, and George Elliot while I walked some of the paths they walked.
Great Middlemarch quote and ever so appropriate in these jumbled days we walk through. “Faithful folks who’ve marked our lives.” This reminds me of the story in The Welcome Song (can you tell it is one of my favorite books? 🙂 where you mentioned the attendance pin that your Uncle had tacked to his bulletin board. I always loved that picture of faithfulness. “Do not despise the day of small things.”