| 
March 2005
This
time my letter is written from home! Weeks of winter and spring
are alternating. In the mornings it is gorgeous, sunshine, blue
skies, blue sea, birds singing their hearts out! There are irises,
snowdrops, daffodils, mounds of primroses, bright polyanthus and
pansies, pale hellebore in the garden, even some wallflowers, and
pink blossoms on some of the trees.
I speak on the phone to friends in London who ask me how the snow is all
the way up here in the far north. “Snow! What’s that?” I ask blithely,
and tell them about the sun and the flowers.
By mid-afternoon I know all about winter again - screaming winds with ice on
their breath, hail and sleet beating on the windows, ‘white horses’
racing across the sea and snow dusting the tops of the hills of
Sutherland. By morning it could be white down to the water. But
the day after the sun will probably be back again.
I did make one trip to Glasgow – just down one day to attend
a book event, and return the following morning. We came back up
the west coast instead of the usual A9 route. We drove along the
side of Loch Lomond in sparkling sunshine, everything was dusted
with snow. Trees were black filigree laden with what looked like
endless blossom. Not a breath of wind stirred, just now and then
a dozen flakes drifted down, like petals.
I wanted to stop every mile or so and take photographs, but the road was winding
and there were few parking spots. Still, I did manage some.
Then we reached further north, high over Rannoch Moor where everything was white
and shining. From there we passed Glen Etive gleaming white, shining
in the sun, and into the dark drama of Glen Coe. We drove past
Ballachulish, up the sea’s edge to Fort William, and then through the Great Glen and home.
I felt as if I had had a glimpse of a perfect world. It was so
beautiful, so vast, so breathtakingly clean. It is like hope itself.
In common with a lot of other people, I had a dose of whatever the current virus
is. Felt rotten for a week or so, then slowly began to get rid
of it. I think we’ve all had it for at least three weeks. I think
it is good to feel ill once in a while. I appreciate good health
far more when I can’t take it for granted. And I hope I will also
feel more compassion towards those who have pain or debility, or
even feel weary most of the time. And that is surprisingly many.
Perhaps all of us have something to conquer, or to live with?
Living
with Limitations
I read a little piece of advice in the newspaper the other day, suggesting that
where we came from we had the power to do almost anything, worlds
obeyed our will. In the future, one far distant day, we will have
such power again. But here and now we have limitations, and we
are here to learn how to work with those limitations. It was not
meant to be taken very seriously, yet I think there was an amazing
depth of wisdom in it. Perhaps before we can handle unlimited power,
we have to overcome the difficulties of living and achieving within
boundaries that are sometimes very tight, sometimes require great
courage, patience, imagination and faith.
It is amazing what you find in a few words: How much depth did the writer intend?
Maybe even as much as I saw – or more?
In the middle of the month I shall go to London to attend a party for business,
and since I am due to leave for Paris a couple of days later, it
makes sense to stay in London rather than fly home, and then the
next day fly down again.
If everything goes according to plan, I shall go on the Eurostar train under
the Channel to Paris. I think the plan includes Strasbourg,
Lille, Bordeaux and then Paris again, and of course London and home.
I have five days, and then at the beginning of April I am off to Canada, then America for my tour with Long Spoon Lane, so my
April letter will be very early. The only alternative would be
to miss out, and I would like to do better than that! I am bound
to have interesting experiences in France, and meet interesting and exciting people
– what other sort is there?
Bitterly
Unfair?
For this month, there were many thoughts, and good spiritual lessons. One such
was last week in Relief Society. The lesson was given by Elizabeth,
my friend, (and secretary, one of only two people who can read my
writing). It was on the subject of suffering of all kinds, which
often seems to be bitterly unfair. Some people, at least outwardly,
have vastly more than others, and not reflecting any deserving that
we can see. And then there are others who have one tragedy after
another, and yet have done nothing wrong that we know.
Many answers came to mind. First, we do not always know what griefs other people
have. They nurse all kinds of pain without showing it. And why
should they? Often the only way to bear a grief, a loneliness or
a failure may be to keep it private. No one likes intrusion into
intimate pain, and pity – as opposed to empathy – makes it immeasurably
worse. This is especially true if it is a failure of some kind
– or feels like one. Or it may involve other people whom we wish
to protect, both their privacy, and perhaps a confidence.
Second, there are many lessons we learn only through hardship. There are things
that cannot be told in words, they can only be experienced. It
is how we develop not just strength, but also compassion for others.
Often hardship binds us together in a way that joy does not. Both
are necessary. But it does seem that those who have suffered together
have a unique bond.
Third, and sometimes hardest to remember, we see such a short part of the whole
plan from here. As has been said often, our existences are three-act
dramas, not one act. We cannot remember the pre-existence, we are
in the process of this act, and the resurrection and eternity lie
ahead of us. Watch any play on stage, and you will find the difficulties
that create the diverse, tragic, heroic or joyous, are fully laid
out in the middle act, the crises come. Only in the last act is
all resolved.
Or to put it in a different analogy, the Lord does not make up the books until
the end of the day. Not much is likely to balance now. It calls
for tremendous faith to keep going sometimes, and courage more than
we think we have.
But how tragic it would be to come to the end, gain a moderate reward, and realize
we could have passed a much harder exam, qualified with honours
and attained glory, if only we had been prepared to try a tougher
course.
I remember years ago, decades now, seeing a glimpse in vision of something so
glorious I fell to my knees and pleaded with the Lord – ‘Let me
have this, nothing less, and I will pay whatever it costs’. Rash
words. But I felt then that to settle for less would be a betrayal
of my own soul, an everlasting tragedy. I would look at what I
had settled for, and never forget what I could have had, if only
I had been prepared to wait upon the Lord’s time, and to pay enough.
It is a long time ago now, in my eyes. Perhaps it is only a blink in God’s
reckoning. I don’t have what I prayed for yet. Sometimes I wonder
if the Lord heard what I said, and took me at my word, the price
and the time. If so, what more can I ask?
Which brings me to the thought that if such a thing is true for me, then surely
it must be so for everyone – we can all have that utmost treasure,
if we are willing to pay what it costs. And of course that is not
simply a passive matter of waiting with faith, no matter how long
or how hard. It is an active thing of being ‘anxiously engaged
in a good cause to bring to pass much righteousness’. It must involve
seeking after the will of God, behaving with courage and honour
and integrity, and above all, loving your fellow man, not merely
wishing him well, but very actively seeking his good.
Honor
That brings me to the subject of honour. I spoke about it to someone the other
day, and was startled to find that to them ‘honour’ meant the way
other people think of us, our reputation. To me it was almost the
opposite, a private thing of fact on which other people’s opinion
had no bearing at all. I think of it not as outward but as completely
inward.
So perhaps I had better clarify. Honour, within the way I was brought up, is
closely linked to integrity. A person of honour never breaks their
word, a promise is binding. Only catastrophe or death releases
you from your given word. If you are forced to break it by circumstances
you cannot govern, then you call and tell the person concerned,
and say you will do all else to make it up.
I can remember as a girl being invited to go to a party with a boy I didn’t
particularly like. I accepted. Then one I really liked asked me.
My mother told me I must go with the boy whose invitation I had
accepted, or I didn’t go at all. I was not very happy! Now I understand
that no boy I would really value would have thought much of me if
I had done as I wished to then! It would have been totally dishonourable.
Now I would despise any grown man who treated a woman like that!
And that shoe has to fit both feet, or neither! Actually most ‘shoes’
do!
A person of honour does not lie, nor do they knowingly allow someone to understand
something that is not true. If you doubt that, ask yourself, would
Christ knowingly allow us to misunderstand something of importance?
Of course not. It is not honest.
A person of honour does not take advantage of another’s ignorance, weakness
or vulnerability. They do not intentionally profit from someone
else’s misfortune. If we doubt, again, ask if Christ would do such
a thing. The answer is plain – of course not.
If the Saviour were to speak to you personally and make you a promise, would
you doubt it? Is your word equally as good? If you make your promises
carefully, allowing that you cannot control all circumstances:
idleness, accident and misfortune sometimes rob us of the power
to keep our word, then what is left that we can control must be
used with honour. ‘I will be there’ must mean exactly that. I
WILL be there. “I will do that for you’, ‘It will be done by this
day’, ‘I will make this’, or ‘deliver that’ must be able to be trusted.
If we behaved with that kind of honour consistently, then the other kind of
honour, that of reputation in the eyes of other people, would probably
take care of itself. And while one does not do it for that reason,
but for its own sake, what a blessing to the Church that would be!
What a missionary tool, if people could say ‘Oh yes, he, or she,
is LDS. If they give their word you can bank on it. It WILL be
so. All debts will be paid, all promises kept. You need never
fear deceit, even by accident’.
I am afraid we are not there yet.
Grateful
for our Abundance
Today we had another excellent lesson in Relief Society, this time taught by
my friend Mary. It was on gratitude, and its power of joy and upliftment.
And I did not think of it at the time, but now I would add also
of cleansing of the spirit. If we are grateful for the abundance
we have, not just in words, but truly grateful, then anger, resentment,
grudges, self pity, even doubts are washed away.
I don’t believe it is possible to feel gratitude swell up inside you for sufficient
food, good health to eat it and be revived and strengthened, without
joy. Most of us have peace without fear of persecution, attack,
endemic disease, freedom to come and go as you please, to say whatever
you believe, speak to whomever you wish; not to mention the simple
things of eyesight to see the glory of sunrise and sunset, flowers,
hearing for the voices of friends or the song of birds, or music
of whatever sort pleases you.
What of the gift of time, a tomorrow in which to mend today’s mistakes, to try
again, to forgive and be forgiven? Another opportunity to be wiser
this time, or braver, or more generous with laughter or praise or
gratitude. A chance to be kinder, to thank someone, encourage someone,
tell someone a truth that will uplift, bring light where there was
gloom before. Is not another chance one of the greatest of all
gifts? We have it all the days of our lives – until the last one.
Let’s use it! One day it will be too late, but for nearly all of
us, that is not today, nor tomorrow.
We, who have been given so MUCH, more than the vast majority of the world who
have to labour all the hours of daylight simply in order to survive,
let us use this bounty God has given us in doing something good.
If we do not, then we have little gratitude.
Of course there will be pain, grief, loneliness, failure now and then, and disillusionment,
guilt, all manner of things that hurt. But they too are each an
opportunity to have courage, faith and love – and honour, when it
is not easy. Any fool can do it when everything goes their way!
The grace is to do it when it is difficult. That chance also is
a gift. Now in the daytime of our lives, let us use all these gifts,
with gratitude, and faith that He who gave them to us, did so for
our blessing.
Until April, may your time bless you.
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
©
Meridian Magazine.
All Rights Reserved.
|
