Dear friend,
Through the ringing in my ears I can hear the scrape of a shovel and the low muttered exchanges of the two young men working outside in the street. As I concentrate on the sounds and the sensations in my body the ringing disappears. My jaw is tense and I relax it.
A door bell rings and greetings are exchanged in the house next door.
Chapter 11 of Tolstoy’s “A Confession” sits open to my right under the desk lamp, a yellow pencil nestled in the folds of the text. It’s the part where Tolstoy realises he is searching for experience of the Divine and it is evading him.
I’m looking at a picture of my Dad, he’s laughing and holding a camera in his hands. In the photo he must be the age I am now. How solid he seemed to me when he was alive, how far off in time. He was a mystery I tried to define according to my personal catalogue of pluses and minuses. Painting him by numbers. Maybe I’m only beginning to know him now?
The last twenty five years of his life were marked by a slow physical and mental decline as he relied increasingly on whisky to structure his days. His behaviour became more erratic and as the light of consciousness dimmed in him his boundaries fractured, so he could be shockingly rude and dismissive.
But looking at the picture of him my heart opens as if it were a door and love pours out of me towards him. Wherever he is now he’ll know about it. The nice feeling is shared, I’m convinced of it now.
Think about why we do anything.
To contribute to the well being of ourselves and of all living beings.
It’s not a lofty ideal. Making it through to the end of a tough day can be it too. It helps to keep on loving under the surface.
How wonderful to realise we can do that by being wholly our selves. Following the thread that leads us to that nice feeling of the heart opening.
Judging slams the door shut.
Condemnation does the same.
Seeking to understand is like reaching out a hand and testing the door handle. Is it locked?
If I press and push will it open?
We want to feel love, so we seek people and things to love. The act of loving opens the door. The mistake that’s easy to make is to give love so that the other will transmit it back to us.
Giving to get.
It works fine until the other stops behaving in ways we’ve decided they must.
Which they are bound to do.
If they are caught up in the same mistake.
Giving to get.
It takes time to forgive the ones who have hurt us. Time we have.
And love comes as we love.
Taking care maybe of a plant, or an animal or your home, or baking scones or making a song or something, anything you can pour love into.
As you open the door of your heart you let the light of love out into the world.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey