| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 18 |
Page 6 |
There are broken pieces, however, in our lives which are not part of God’s plan for us, but failures to do our whole duty. At the end of a year there are in our lives many broken things – broken pledges, broken promises, broken intentions, lying among the debris. Have there been tasks not even touched? Have there been duties of kindness left undone day after day? “Gather up the broken pieces.” But can we? Can we make up for past failures? Yes, in a sense. Because you have been carrying a miserable grudge in your heart against a neighbour, treating him coldly, selfishly, unchristianly, for eleven months and eighteen days, is no reason why you should continue to keep the grudge in your heart, the unloving coldness in your treatment of him, the remaining thirteen days of the year. Because we have been haughty and proud and self conceited, spoiling all the year thus far, must we spoil all the year thus far, must we spoil the little that yet remains of it? We cannot undo, but the people we have harmed and neglected will forget and forgive a very unkind and even cruel past, if we come no with genuine kindness and flood all the bitter memories with love while we may.
It is a beautiful arrangement that Christmas comes in among the last days of the year. Its warmth melts the ice. Everybody gives presents at Christmas time. Dr. Robertson Nicoll, in a suggestion for Christmas, says that giving presents is not always the best was to help the joy. Most of us do not need presents, he says. But what will do our hearts far more good is to write a batch of kind, affectionate, and encouraging letters. We can readily call to mind friends and acquaintances with whom life has passed roughly during the year. Let us write to them. Write to the friend far away, who is fighting a hard battle, and tell him what you think of his constancy. Write to the sick friend who fancies herself of no use in the world, and tell her that her life matters much to you… Huge Price Huges, Dr. Nicoll says, kept very few letters, but in searching through his desk one day, his wife came upon one from a special friend, which Mr. Hughes had not destroyed. He had been passing through a serious trial, and this friend had written him a letter of encouragement and strong affection. Then Dr. Nicoll says, “If I were to covet any honour of friendship, it would be this – that some letters of mine might be found in the desks of my friends, when their life struggle ended.”
Page 6