Boreham on Distancing Ourselves and Discernment

One of the F W Boreham stories used in my new online book, Making Life Decisions, is this one:

“F W Boreham tells how he was strolling among some tulip beds in the Rosherville Gardens at Gravesend.[1] He loved the ‘riot of colors’ as he admired one flower bed after another. On leaving the gardens he climbed a cliff path and when he got to a landing he looked down and saw the flower beds again, spread out beneath him. He could no longer see the individual flowers but he could survey the entire design of the garden and lawns. Looking down at the floral scene he observed that the tulips had been arranged in an elaborate pattern and across the centre of the gardens the colourful flowers spelt out the words, ‘God Save the King’.

Sometimes we are tyrannized by the details of finding our way and walking the journey that we cannot comprehend the full picture. It is a helpful thing to regularly distance ourselves from everyday life in order to discern life’s beauty and meaning.”

To see how this story forms part of a 40 day journey of discernment, check this link:

To start from the beginning and see how this book can be used by individuals, by groups (even people emailing on the opposite sides of the world) and by congregations in a concerted period of learning and seeking, go to the first page at:

Making Life Decisions: Journey in Discernment

Mark it as a favorite for an easy return.

Geoff Pound

Image: Text of truths in tulips!

[1] F W Boreham, A Late Lark Singing (London: The Epworth Press, 1945), 153.

Boreham Stories in New Online Book

I wanted you to know that I have recently published online a book entitled, Making Life Decisions: Journey in Discernment.

If you are simply interested in discovering stories for your talks and articles, this book has scores of stories from people such as Charles Handy, Joan Chittester, Frederick Buechner, John Claypool and of course, F W Boreham.

This book, Making Life Decisions: Journey in Discernment, as I have said in the introduction, “is a workbook, a tour guide or a travel journal for people wanting to make a forty-day journey in discernment.”

It can be used for personal study, group study or as an integrated learning experience.

To learn more about how it can be used or simply to find those stories, here is the link:
Making Life Decisions: Journey in Discernment

The last page of this online book has a page of ever increasing resources on decision making and discernment. It points to a related site called:
Discernment Resources

Please let me know of helpful resources such as books or web sites by adding a comment.

There are regular stories on the theme of decision making and discernment that I will be posting on this site:

If you find these resources helpful, do pass on the links to other people by email or link in your newsletter.

Geoff Pound

Image: On the journey.

Boreham on the Great Cloud of Witnesses

An old county cricketer had lost his sight. He was stone blind. And it was the grief of all his days that he could not see his own boy play the great game. The son became the crack bat of the school team, and used to lead his father to the ground. But, beyond hearing with inexpressible delight the comments of the crowd and his boy's play, he got small satisfaction from it.

One day he suddenly died. The following Saturday an important match was to be played. Other members of the team, who knew of the lad's affection for his blind father, took it for granted that their best bat would be absent. But, to their surprise, he strolled down in his flannels, and presented himself for play. And he batted that day as he had never done before. He snicked and cut and pulled and drove with magnificent audacity and judgment. His companions were bewildered. He rattled up a century in no time, and won the match with ease.

After the applause of the pavilion had died down, he turned to a comrade and asked, ‘How did I play?’
‘Never better; you outdid yourself. What did it all mean?’
‘Why, you see,’ said the young hero, ‘it was the first time my father ever saw me bat!’

F W Boreham, The Other Side of the Hill (London: Charles H Kelly, 1917), 195-196.

New Book For Sale

This is one of the 250+stories that can be found in the recently published book,

F W Boreham, All the Blessings of Life: The Best Stories of F W Boreham.

My publishing colleague, Michael Dalton has a Thanksgiving special on at the moment so it can be purchased (with the two other new Boreham books) at the best price.

Instructions are at this link:
F W Boreham Publishing News—Thanksgiving Special

Southern Hemisphere people might like to order from these links:

COC Online Shop
Steve Grosey Site

Image: “he batted that day as he had never done before.”

Another story from this new book can be found at this link:

Stories for Speakers and Writers

Boreham on the Joy of Making a Great Discovery

F W Boreham is continuing to encourage his readers to keep their eyes open and to ponder the joy of discovery:

In his First Men in the Moon, Mr. H. G. Wells describes the fierce joy of his heroes when they made the most sensational of all their discoveries.

They were moving about a world that they supposed to be dead, and its dreary deadness depressed them. Then came the sensation!

One of them came suddenly upon a germ of vegetable life!
“Cavor!” he whispered.
“What?” his companion replied.
“Look!”

They stared incredulous. They could not believe their eyes. They gave inarticulate cries. They gripped each other's arms.
“It is life!” said the one.
“It is life!” echoed the other.
Life! Life! LIFE!!!

It was like standing by and actually watching a miracle performed; and surely the wonder is not the less because at Wedge Bay I see that selfsame miracle a million times repeated!

F W Boreham, ‘Wedge Bay’, A Golden Milestone (London: Charles H Kelly, 1915), 117.

Image: First Men in the Moon, book cover. This has also been made into a movie.

Boreham on Eyes Wide Open

F W Boreham in his essay on Wedge Bay (his favourite holiday place) confesses his failure to truly see the treasures in the natural world and then offers this story on being open to see wonders:

The humiliations of Wedge Bay do not spare me even at this excruciating point. For, after all that I have seen, I am still oppressed by the painful conviction that most of the beauty of this charming place has really eluded me, and even eluded these sharp-eyed young foragers of mine. At every turn I am conscious of a feeling that there is a beauty lurking everywhere that I am too gross and too blind and too stupid to perceive.

And this painful sensation was intensified rather than relieved by a striking thing that I read in a book with which I invaded these leafy bowers. It struck me as a gem in its way. It occurs in the Life of Frank Buckland. The genial naturalist resolved to make a special study of snakes. So he engaged a professional viper-catcher, named White, to collect some for him. White went off to the New Forest, and in four days returned saying that he had had some capital sport. ‘We went into an empty room,’ Buckland tells us, ‘and, standing on a chair, I unloosed the top of White's bag, and shot the contents on to the floor. The slippery reptiles came tumbling out, first singly and then in pairs, and at last the main body, coiled and twisted together into a solid mass, like Medusa's chignon; and in half a minute I had them all over the floor looking as savage as vipers can look.’ Buckland and White then caught one of the biggest, held it securely, and lifted it from the ground. ‘The viper slashed his tail about, like a loose halyard in a gale of wind, and then twined his body round White's hand. I tickled his nose with a feather until he was thoroughly furious. I then got a glass slide out of the microscope and placed it in the serpent's mouth. In an instant both fangs struck down upon it. Upon taking away the glass from its jaws, I was delighted to observe two drops of perfectly clear translucent fluid resting upon it, each drop corresponding to the place where the tooth had struck. I at once placed these drops under the microscope and then saw a wondrous sight. After a second or two, on a sudden, a crystal-like fibre shot across the field of vision, and then another and another, these slender lines crossing each other at various angles, reminding me of the general appearance of an aurora borealis, or of delicate frost crystals on a window when there has been a sharp touch of frost.’

Now, if all the coruscations of the aurora are hidden in the venom of the viper, how much loveliness I must be missing as I stroll along this lonely shore, thrid the winding tracks of this solitary bush, or peer with shaded eyes from the side of the boat down into the crystalline depths of this clear, clear water! Yes, one feels himself something of an adventurer when he has spent six months of his life at Wedge Bay.

F W Boreham, ‘Wedge Bay’, The Golden Milestone (London: Charles H Kelly, 1915), 115-117.

Image: “The viper slashed his tail about, like a loose halyard in a gale of wind..”