Day 1, 8th February 2010
The Honourable Witness, p68
The back story is this: in her rage, Laura had spat at the small boy and called him a racist name. She wasn't that angry with him personally, but he was the last straw after a difficult day.
When she told her husband, Malcolm, he wasn't quite sure what to do. Should he tell the truth or side with Laura and lie, hoping the small boy wouldn't be believed?
He asked around for advice. The priest said he should keep quiet, as his first obligation was to his sacred marriage vows. His friend said he should keep quiet, as charity began at home. His boss said he should keep quiet, as reputation was important.
When the police came round, Malcolm was ready.
'I saw it all,' he said, 'and nothing happened to the boy.'
So the boy wasn't believed and Laura and Malcolm celebrated another wedding anniversary - oh, and Malcolm's promotion at work!
Truth is too awkward for most people.
Day 2, 9th February 2010
Fragile, p87
The year 1869 was turning out to be a very good one for Gustave Flaubert, the French author most famous for his novel Madame Bovary. In a letter to a friend, penned in this year, he was happy with life. Andy why not? After all, he didn't know what was round the corner.
Five weeks after he had written the letter, his friend Louis Bouilet died, and shortley after that the critics turned on Flaubert's latest work. Soldiers occupied his house during the war of 1870, and that year also saw the death of his mother, with who he lived, and the collapse of timber prices, which ruined him financially. Under such strain, his health, never good, finally cracked. By 1875 he was a broken amn.
However determined or gifted we may be, life, like china in the hand, is a fragile thing. And that's OK.
Day 3, 10th February 2010
Separated in the Crowd, p121
Sometimes we have a need to be reunited with our loveliness, for someone or something to bless us into fresh-as-dew awareness of our simple wonder:
How might it happen?
It might come quietly and impossibly, like seeds flowering in dry land. Or it might come powerfully, like a strong tide washing deckchairs and sandcastles away.
Or perhaps it will come like this: like an old man meeting his childhood self. Imagine it! Imagine an old man, harshly treated by life, in conversation with the hopeful boy he once was - young, bright, miraculous and vital! Separated by the years, separated by experience, yet not separate at all. They are not two but one.
And we are one with our loveliness and wonder - though sometimes we get separated in the crowd.
Day 4, 11th February 2010
The Welcoming Void, p181
The darkness is total. Blacker than magic, more brilliant than light, it is a vast outbreak of nothing, unfenced by horizon. Here is deep space: luminous, shiny as hot tar, oozing existence - like a black cat stretching out in the bright sun.
Here is a velvet pool of emptiness, a liquid vacuum of pure possibility. It is absolute nothing, full only of absence and unmade creation. Here is the hollow place, the holy place, beyond all things physical and knowable.
North of north, south of south and east of eternity, here is nothing. And how nothing gives birth to something is a great wonder. Nothing into something, something from nothing, as from this dark barn of spontaneity and peace, all phenomena emerge; as from this womb of zero, stories arise like a butterfly breaking clear and fluttering free, so fragile, beautiful and brief.
Have a good day.
Day 5, 12th February 2010
Small Things, p152
Each day, we are given the strength to do small tings, for our life is comprised of such events. there are no big things, just small things; small things well lived. Perhaps we do the washing up after supper, write a card, wonder about a holiday or invoice a client. Perhaps we build a wall, make a speech, drive up the motorway or go hospital visiting. Perhaps we e-mail a job proposal, make coffee for a colleague at work, piot a plane over France or see a rainbow.
As I say, there are no big things, just small things well lived daily. Tomorrow's small things remain a mystery, of course; a quiet unfolding way beyond our plans. Today's are enough, arriving like a string of pearls, on after the other.
As to what they'll become, who knows? Though I suspect these small things add up. As Van Gogh said: 'Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brough together.'
Day 6, 15th February 2010
Suffering Fools, p 107
Do you find suffering upsetting?
I find suffering upsetting.
Suffering asks the question: "Who are you?"
And this is why I am so upset -
because most of me is phoney.
Day 7, 16th February 2010
The Little Hill That Roared, p147
After the Amazon and the Nile, the Yangtze is the third longest river in the world. Starting in the glaciers of Tibet and travelling across China to the region of Shanghai, it is called 'the Long River' by the Chinese.
But it might have been lost to them. A hundred miles south of Batang, the river is heading out of China towards Thailand and Cambodia when it meets a hill and returns north.
It's not a big or famous hill, and nothing compared to some of the mountains around it. But alone it halts the mighty river in its tracks, turning the flow northwards on a nation-defining journey across China.
I suspect the hill may have been put there by the god of small things, who exists because nothing else matters.
Day 8, 17th February 2010
Old Ghosts, p20
Sometimes I declare myself to be worried. 'I am so worried!" I say, and believe this to be so. My worry is the most obvious thing in the world. And haven't I every reason to be worried?
Like a dark cloud across the sun, a worry to be me. Yes, I seem somehow defined by it. I move from noticing a concern passing through to the sense that this is who I am: I am this worry!
I am not this worry, of course. Like most distressing emotions, it is a distant memory acting up, a childish panic resurrected. My present circumstances jangle old bells and stir old ghosts, but a worry wort? Not me!
I am peace, that is who I am, while old ghosts trespass on land that isn't theirs.
Day 9, 18th February 2010
Clouding the Issue, p167
I'm contemplating the clouds today and floating some cotton-wool thoughts.
For good or ill, clouds do give the sky much of its character. Like our emotions, they are changing and ever variable, adjusting in colour and type.
Clouds can look solid and opaque, and on dark days prove a heavy and dominating presence across the landscape. Though apparently they a 99 per cent empty and not sold at all. The appearance of solidity is a trick of reflected light on the water droplets.
There's not much we can do about the sky, of course. Sometimes it's blue and sometimes it isn't.
And things do change, as we know. Often the warmth of the sun dissolves to moisture of the clouds.
It's good that our soul sky is blue, though clouds do pass through.
Day 10, 19th February 2010
The School Fool, p156
Tomkinson was soon to leave the school and his teacher wanted a final word with him. He had never like the boy, if he was honest. Indeed, on occasion it has given him pleasure to make his life a misery. He had not always used his power fairly perhaps, but then Tommo had played the fool too often.
And now time for some final words.
'Soon to leave, Tomkinson?'
'Soon to leave, sir, yes.'
'So tell me, what do you want to be when you grow up?'
'I'm not sure,' replied the boy. 'How about you, sir?'
We must never mistake an adult for someone who's grown up.