Friday, December 01, 2006

Living with spilt milk

I was going to try and be clever. But the words aren't coming. I wanted to link two things: 1) the fact that I've just read on "The Unlikely Evangelist" website (link to be added soon!) about "the end of the world", about how it's not about the destruction of the world, but seeing the world through different eyes amd working for its re-creation now; and 2) a letter I've received angrily criticising me for forgetting to do something. And they are linked - I think. The letter really upset me. It was right - I had forgotten to do something - but its anger was disproportionate, and the attack was personal. So I have to live with that spilt milk, which I did "cry over" briefly, but I felt better after telling one of the most amazing 70-something year-old women who phoned me back and read a prayer over the phone. Of course, this incident is not the end of the world, and yet on the other hand, it is. I must pray for the person who wrote it, if I want to be part of this 'new world', because that begins to break the cycle of bad feeling - but it's bloody hard! In fact, I should want this episode to be the end of the world as we knew it, to be an opportunity (a kairos?!) for something new and braver. Forgetting things is easily done; I'm sure the letter-writer has forgotten a few things too; so "spilt milk" is all around us; but the trick is to live with it in a new way, with new eyes, with a new prayer: God, help me to mop it up.

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