After walking up to the table, the man looked over the art books, picked up one about Marc Chagall and began leafing through it. I also picked up a book about Vincent Van Gogh. Some writing at the front of the Van Gogh book (about the author who had assembled the book), explained how the author had first traveled to America and sojourned there a while. The publishers appreciated that the author had finally returned to Europe to assemble the book.

It looked as if the book only contained colorful pictures, but as I perused them, the pictures seemed to tell a story. The initial picture depicted a young man, whereas successive pictures portrayed the man as he became older. The first picture seemed to display the man during a time when he had experienced spiritual yearnings and had been able to ponder other-worldly matters. As the pictures showed the man growing older, the motif emerged of a man more and more absorbed with his own problems. I thought such a motif was also applicable to my own life, how the older I became the more concerned I became with my own problems. Only when I became very old would I be able to return to the spiritual side of life.

In one picture the man was sitting in front of an immense church or cathedral in the background. As I studied the church, it occurred to me that a person could always put his or her hope in God, even in the most trying circumstances such as I was now in, being held prisoner. Even now I could contemplate God, even before the interrogation began. It also occurred to me that a person could store up the availability of help from God and that the way to store up this help was by helping other people. I knew I needed to be helping other people.

Abruptly in a sonorous and pleasing voice I sang out, "My God thou art my refuge."