The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

My Books Are a Portal to the Outside World

We’re reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom in my book club. It’s a beautifully heartbreaking memoir of a Dutch watchmaker and her family who were captured by Nazi Germany for helping Jewish people escape to freedom.

There’s a moment in the book that reminds me of reading itself. Corrie has been sent to Kalte Kost, German for “Cold Food,” a solitary confinement cell that is six paces long and two paces wide. Unlike the other prisoners who get a warm bowl of gray sludge every day, prisoners in Kalte Kost get cold sludge. The cell reeks of sickness from the prior inmate and adjoins the outer walls of the prison exposing it to the harsh winds of winter. Corrie has a fever and can barely lift herself off the puke-stained straw bed to get her food.

Her only solace is a small window in the cell. I’d like to share this passage with you and then discuss how it relates to reading.

Corrie says, “In only one way was this new cell an improvement over the first one. It had a window. Seven iron bars ran across it, four bars up and down. It was high in the wall, much too high to look out of, but through those twenty-eight squares I could see the sky. All day, I kept my eyes fixed on that bit of heaven. Sometimes, clouds moved across the squares, white or pink edged with gold, and when the wind was from the west I could hear the sea. Best of all, for nearly an hour each day, gradually lengthening as the spring sun rose higher, a shaft of checkered light streamed into the dark little room. As the weather turned warm and I grew stronger, I would stand up to catch the sunshine on my face and chest, moving along the wall with the moving light, climbing at last onto the cot to stand on tiptoe in the final rays” (Ten Boom 163).

It’s a strong metaphor for how books make me feel. She’s shoved into a cramped cell, sick, alone, and afraid. It’s dark everywhere and she’s freezing. But for one hour a day, the light comes in from that small square to travel across her room and fill her up.

While my life is beautiful (no complaints due to my incredible wife and kids), life itself is hard. There are times when things feel too much to bear. It’s easy to feel cold, alone and lost. But when I open my books, they become portals to another life. They fill me with sunshine.

Until tomorrow, read slowly – take notes – apply the ideas.

-Eddy

Works Cited:

Ten Boom, Corrie, et al. The Hiding Place. 35th ed, Chosen Books, 2006.

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