Alongside the path runs a stream
On daily strength, borrowed wisdom, and a way of entering the year refreshed
I was reading an introduction to a book of daily inspiration. The writer was talking about the value of taking some time each day to reflect on life. He summarized the struggle of living in the modern world this way:
In these days of great emotion and radical change we need the steady, persistent and refreshing inspiration…which entering the texture of our life in the morning will refresh us through the day or in the evening give us a sense of comfort and peace. The path of life in these days is often exhausting, barren of ideals, stripped of romance and depressing to faith: alongside the path, if we would stop for a moment, runs a stream of refreshing thought.
That was William Lawrence the Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts writing in 1934, and the book is Daily Strength for Daily Needs edited by Mary Wilder Tileston, first published one hundred and forty-two years ago, in 1884. There is a page for every day of the year, each containing a Bible verse, a poem and a quote from some author of the day. It is a beautiful, unpretentious volume — not cloying or sentimental.
The book is intended for use by those of the Christian faith. That said, it serves a purpose similar to many devotional or meditative practices: to refresh the spirit with perspective, connection and hope. This is accomplished, one could argue, through a communal or individual practice in which the participant is invited to:
Focus their attention
Consider a broader frame than one usually does
Acknowledge a superordinate principle or entity above and encompassing the experience of human life (or indeed, all life)
Think in terms of gratitude for what is
My feeling is that no single religion or ideology has a corner on this method.
Speaking of heterodox thinking, my mom was the director of religious education for the Unitarian church in Wilmington for some years in the 1970s. At the start of the New Year in 1976, she prepared a reading in the form of a list of New Year resolutions. With a characteristic theatrical touch, she had the list read by alternate voices — hers in front of the congregation, and a young man, Luke Mette, from the balcony at the back of the church.
A member of the church, Betty Carotta had kept a copy of the text, and sent it to my sister Pat with a kind note after our mom’s death in 2006.
I present it here in two print styles. I imagine Janet reading the first verse, with Luke answering with the text in bold italics. Its title is simply “Antiphonal Reading by Janet Hickman.”
To remember the hunger and hopelessness of people whose lives rarely touch ours, and to help when it is within our power. But not to become so absorbed in the woes of mankind that we are unable to see the person next to us who is in need.
To perceive the wonder of the world. To enjoy each moment because that is all we are guaranteed.
To be unafraid to show gentleness for it seems to be a fact of life that it is where our greatest strengths are found.
To try to learn the secret of giving and taking. Each person needs to strike his own balance. If we do either one too much, we don’t feel happy and neither does anyone else.
To love pure knowledge but not to lust after it lest it become a tyrant, shutting out the learning which seeks to bewitch us through our senses. To remember that some things do not give up their mystery to microscopes and test tubes.
To have dreams. They are what keep hope alive. To know, too, when to give one up that we have worn out or outgrown – and then to spin another.
To learn to trust our own perceptions and to have the courage to act on them.
To leave spaces in our lives for thinking quietly about things and how they all fit together.
To keep a firm hand on the love of power and money and flattery as sources of nourishment, knowing they are capricious seducers that vanish without warning.
To be glad that we’re all different – different skins, different dispositions, different ways of viewing the world. Maybe then we won’t be so afraid of each other. For fear is fertile ground for hatred – and the world is saturated with that, and does not need the stubborn ounces of our own.
To laugh more this year. There are probably more reasons to do it than we usually notice.
We have not, without cause, been labeled “the Human Comedy.” Our little dreams of good intentions and vain pretensions should at least make us smile.
Fifty years later I still feel resonance with these lines. That last one would benefit from some explanation. This is classic Janet. She valued honest self-reflection and striving not to take the self too seriously.
That seems like a helpful way to enter the new year. Try not to add to the ocean of hatred.
Each of us is better than the men who seem to be running the show these days. Maybe that qualifies as a “vain pretension” on my part, but the thought gives me some measure of strength and solace going into the new year.
Happy New Year Stewart. what a beautiful and thougtful post. and such a fond remembering of your mother. it's as if she was the stream running along side you and your sister's young and uncharted path. quite moving.
i hope you're well.
xo
ross
Your mom was perceptive and articulate, Stew, like you. In addition to the reminder to avoid fertilizing fear, which increases yields of hatred (one of our most abundant renewable resources, it seems), I particularly appreciated her advice to both cultivate dreams and know when to let them go, and to "remember that some things do not give up their mystery to microscopes and test tubes." The latter reminds me of Iris Dement's "Let the Mystery Be." Thanks for the timely and timeless share. Happy New Year!