The last line of R.S. Thomas’ poem Kneeling reads, ‘The meaning is in the waiting.’ When we pray or meditate we should not expect manna to fall from heaven. As T.S. Eliot says in Little Gidding, ‘Prayer is more than an order of words.’ We stand at a door. We knock. And we wait. Sometimes – often – it seems as though no one is going to open that door. Then there are days when the door opens an inch or two and we hear music as from another room. It is the sound of that music, heard however briefly, that encourages to persevere. Often without our being consciously aware, something is being worked through at a deep level within us: old problems resolved, old enmities, jealousies, lusts, angers, anxieties.
Month: August 2022
New edition of ‘Finding Silence’ now available
A handsome new edition of James’ book, Finding Silence is now available on Amazon.
Alternatively, if blog readers would like a signed copy for themselves or a friend please contact James by email.
You can find out more about this edition by clicking here.
Fulfilling
‘Death is indeed a fearful piece of brutality. There is no sense in pretending otherwise,’ Carl Jung wrote on the death of Emma, his beloved wife of 52 years. But, he added, ‘from another point of view death appears as a joyful event … in which the soul attains its missing half. It is a wedding.’ To this day it is the custom in many parts of the world to hold a picnic on the graves of departed ones on All Souls’ Day. Such communal rituals express the feeling that death is really a festive occasion. When we die our deeds – how we have lived our lives – will follow along with us, and so it is important that, at the end, we do not stand with empty hands! Such a reflection reminds us of the importance of each one of us living our lives to the full, fulfilling our individual destinies.