In the afterword of “Daughter of Anne-Hoeck,” I reflected on what I learned from studying the unusual life of Susanna Hutchinson. It seems particularly applicable to the time in which I find my own self living. It is too easy to feel the angst over circumstances I cannot control: the day to day grinding of political upheaval and warring of opinions, injustice and suffering, and now a world pandemic. How much the sun shines and how much it rains. Any yet I must remember:
“Men and women live inside a social and political world which affects their circumstances. But our lives are much more than world events, social mores, or the interpretations of current government and religious authorities. We choose our own beliefs and opinions and actions, deciding for ourselves the truths we will follow. In doing so, we build a world of our own creation inside of our larger world. Isn’t that what the designer of earth and mankind desires for each of us? Like Susanna, we choose and shape our own “space between.”