|
Letter From The Highlands
December, 2003
By Anne Perry
I can hardly believe this is the final letter
of the year. Last Christmas seems so recent. Yet a great deal
has happened since then, both good and bad. There have been successes
and failures and an enormous amount from which to learn.
We have had the strangest weather anyone can recall. Right here in this part
of Scotland, we have had what is more or less summer since February!
That is now over ten months, and for us summer is usually an affair
of two months, or three at best. It is still calm almost every
day, and if it rains, it must do so at night. I can only remember
a couple of really soaking days in weeks and weeks. Most of the
time it is sunny and air so still nothing stirs. The beauty of
it is breathtaking. Now is full moon, and in a clear sky, low over
the sea in the twilight, it is unforgettable.
Of course the Water Board is getting upset and talking about rationing in places.
Reservoirs are low. But in our generally damp climate there is
still sufficient that we do not have to worry for wild life, which
is one of the first things I think of. Some of the vegetable crops
are less than usual, but then the grain is so excellent we are apparently
exporting to places like the Ukraine.
If we have two of three years like this people in the south will stop thinking
this is a barbaric climate, and all start coming up here to live!
We shall get overcrowded, expensive, too much traffic on the road,
and forget what snow looks like – or even frost, for that matter.
So perhaps I shall be glad enough when this glorious season breaks.
But in the meantime, I am gaining such joy in the winter light, the silver and
blue of it, the burning sunsets (when there is any cloud to hold
the colour!) the breathlessly still days when the sea is like silk
with hardly a ripple. The only way we know it is winter is the
filigree of bare branches against the sky, the slant of the light
so low across the fields with that eerie, stark clarity no other
time has, and the call from skeins of wild birds as they go over.
They are mostly geese, but now and again, low and close, sunlight
brilliant on their wings, the swans. I am not sure why, but when
I see wild swans flying it always feels like a blessing. To see
dolphins jump on the incoming tide affects me the same way.
It has been a strange and thoughtful autumn, touched by several deaths of people
close to me. Two of my dearest friends have lost sisters, and two
others a husband and father. Only one of them was up to their three
score years and ten.
In one case my friend asked me to come and visit her and her sister on a weekend,
and I did go. It was a journey of six or so hours, and necessitated
an overnight stay in order to see them twice. I was home only a
day when the call came to tell me that the sister had died. Had
I put it off, I would have been too late.
The Gift of Time
It has turned my mind lately to the infinitely precious gift of time. We tend
so easily to imagine that we have any amount of it, and what is
not done today can always be picked up tomorrow. No it can’t –
not always. There is going to be a time when it is too late, when
we cannot say ‘I’m sorry’, or ‘I love you’, or ‘I am grateful for
all you have given me’ – or anything else that matters. So much
of regret is not the things we couldn’t have done, but things we
could have, and simply didn’t.
It can seem maudlin to think of death, of shadows lengthening and chances dwindling
away. But it doesn’t have to! It can be a reminder of how precious
it is to have a ‘tomorrow’ in which to try harder, to say the good
things which are still unsaid, to refrain from saying and doing
those which on looking back will be ugly – or destructive.
Like all of us, I have one life, one chance to make of myself what I really
want to be. Is that what I am doing? What do I want, stripped
down to the naked truth? I want to be brave. ‘Coward’ is one of
the most terrible, tragic things that can be said of anyone. I
want to be generous. How fearful to be mean of spirit. What I
do not give of myself now? I want to be without grudges. I am
going to need forgiveness when I stand before God. How terrible
above all else if I have prevented Him forgiving me, because I will
not forgive others! And there is no one anywhere whom I can possibly
know well enough to be righteous in condemning. Why would I want
to, anyway? An act may be wrong, it may be self-righteous, vindictive,
dishonest, in every way ugly – but not a person, not beyond repentance.
And how could I wish it were?
Now is the time to make certain I have made possible my own forgiveness, by
willingly and eagerly allowing that of others.
Now is the time to do what is right, whether it causes me fear or not – fear
of pain, ridicule, loneliness, misunderstanding, want – fear of
failure or rejection, all the things that hurt most deeply. If
I try, of course I might fail. But if I do not try, I have failed
already – and by CHOICE!
Now is the time to make the extra effort, whether I am tired or not. If this
was not the best I could do, then when do I mean to give it my all?
Tomorrow? How tragic to look back and think on what I could have
achieved, if only I had been willing to work at it!
God wishes to bless us, we are not always willing to make the effort it requires
to receive. He cannot give us what we will not hold.
Euphemisms
Which brings me to a related subject. Euphemisms. It seems we have developed
so many ways of using roundabout means of saying things, misuse
of words, toning down of anything which might be embarrassing or
abrupt, or painful, that we have lost the truth in a forest of euphemisms.
We ‘lie at rest’, ‘pass over’, ‘fall asleep’, ‘cross the great divide’,
‘go on ahead’ – anything but ‘die’.
I think that matters less than some other things, because we all know what we
mean by these terms – at least all adults do. Perhaps some children
wonder why we are so afraid of death we can’t be frank about it.
But we sometimes evade other things as well. We can be so afraid of offending
we end up being obscure to the point of being incomprehensible.
We don’t need hellfire sermons, we do need to be told candidly such
things as that in order to be with those we love in eternity, we
need to reach the highest degree of glory that there is. We need
to become Celestial people! And that means we MUST be honest when
it hurts as well as when it is easy! We MUST be concerned with
the happiness and welfare of all people, not just our own families,
or those whom we like. We must be free of all resentment, vanity,
envy – and most especially unrighteous dominion! And how hard that
is! A little praise, a little authority and we find it so easy
to exert a power we should not.
Joseph Smith’s warning on authority should be written in letters of fire across
the sky! The humility which is so much praised is not, I believe,
a putting down of oneself, not a fear nor a doubt of worth, and
never, ever an excuse for cowardice. It is the conviction that
every other human being is worthy of being treated with respect,
and may have knowledge, skills, wisdom, even understanding of the
ways of God, that I do not! And ‘every other’ includes women and
children, people of other races and cultures, other degrees of intelligence
or education, or any difference I care to think of.
It is not easy to be corrected by someone younger, newer to the church, dare
I say it – female! But if they are right, how much more arrogant
and stupid of me if my pride will not let me acknowledge it? Am
I then not only perverse, but wilfully stupid?
Let me not obscure truth by pride, fear, laziness, anger, or so many roundabout
words that what is ugly no longer frightens me, and what is beautiful
no longer tempts me, or fires me to work night and day to achieve
it.
It is a delicate path to tread, being sure enough of truth that I don’t speak
it without danger of hurt, or misleading because my words are not
used well. I think it is better to speak simply of the goals to
be desired, not of condemnation. It is so easy to drive someone
else away into despair, because I have crushed their hope of forgiveness
with my anger.
Let me not say this or that person is bad, this or that sin damnable, but rather
extol with passion, the beauty of what is good, in the certain knowledge
that some measure of it is attainable by all, and only our Father
who made us – and LOVES us – knows how much by any one. For me
– I MUST do my best. It is fast growing too late for anything less.
May the joy and the hope of Christmas bless you all and fill you with courage
and with peace.
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
© 2003 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
|
