On my birthday a few weeks ago, a friend sent me an elegant doorstop with a note saying she hoped this would not prevent her coming through my door again. When I wrote back I included the words of an invocation my nine year old son had learned, and used to recite when we sometimes had family prayers. Since we were attending the silent Quaker meeting at the time, I worried that the children would have no words of comfort, poetry and beauty to fall back on when they needed it, like the store of beauty and strength I had inherited from the Anglican prayer book, so we learned some poetry and prayers together.
Oh God, Make the door of this house wide enough receive all who need human love and fellowship, and narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride and strife. These grim stoical words gave me the backbone I needed to keep on keeping on. A few years later, in happier times, life still demanded courage and tenacity and I used a Taoist verse to keep me going. During this time, many people wrote to me or contacted me, as a result of the columns I wrote every week.
One particular woman rang with what seemed like a convoluted problem to ask my help, so I referred her to a helping agency. A week or so later she came back, saying she was still up against it, unable to get help. So I sent her in another direction. Again some weeks later she was back, sounding even more desperate, so I suggested her MP as a last resort. But no… no go. She always rang in the early evening when I was preparing our evening meal, and when I was at my most exhausted coping with CFS, and beginning to feel as desperate as she was by the time she rang again.
I also began to feel that perhaps she was the problem, rather than the circumstances as she told them. I gave her these words from the Chinese Tao: Close your eyes and you will see the truth, Be still and you will move forward on the tide of the spirit, Be gentle and you will need no strength, Be patient and you will achieve all things, Be humble and you will remain entire,.
In its brief course lies all The realities and verities of existence……. For yesterday is but a dream And tomorrow is only a vision, But today, well lived, Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, And every tomorrow a vision of hope, Look well, therefore, to this day.
