We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.

Oursler’s image recasts the Crucifixion scene—Christ between two thieves—as a psychological and spiritual allegory. The “thieves” are not people but time-oriented anxieties: regret that steals peace by replaying the past, and fear that steals courage by imagining the future. To “crucify ourselves” suggests self-inflicted suffering: we pin ourselves to an unlivable posture, suspended between what cannot be changed and what has not yet happened. The line functions as a moral exhortation in the tradition of devotional writing, urging attention to the present moment and a release of corrosive rumination and anticipatory dread.