Feest Isolation Days – 15 July
The weather was gorgeous in the morning yesterday and then it wasn’t. The rain and the chill returned. After donning additional layers, I sat at my desk marvelling that I had managed a bike ride outside before the deluge. Weather reports that are more and more accurate on an hourly basis are still a marvel to me.
While sitting at my desk dreaming about the summer sun, I glanced towards my pinboard and noticed a laminated poster I picked up in a church awhile back. During that pre Covid time when you could go for long walks, have a pub lunch, and mosey into a church that you found along the way. I’ve always loved old English churches. There is something about the history and the smell that carries you away into another time and place and makes you feel like whatever is going on for you at this point in your life will change and you can always but always begin again. Those are the sentiments expressed by Max Ehrmann on the poster I found in that church’s shop and pinned up in my study. To Begin Again. It’s hardly easy sometimes and other times it’s a dawdle. I was just starting writing a second novel after a first went nowhere and needed those sentiments.
It never occurred to me until today when I looked up the author of my poster that Max and I had met – so to speak – before. He wrote the Desiderata. That wonderful piece joined me over the years in many of my homes and I never had the time or the inclination to find out about the man who wrote it. Predictably, he was an interesting chap. Born to German parents in Terre Haute Indiana in 1872, he did his first degree, then went to Harvard where he did law and received a PhD. He went back to Terre Haute and stopped practising law in order to write. The Desiderata was first sent to friends as a Christmas Card! He was a near bachelor until three months before his death when he finally married his long time girlfriend, Bertha.
Desiderata spoke to several generations of Americans, but it wasn’t until Democratic Governor and Congressman Adlai Stevenson, (the best President America never had) died in 1965, that it reached far into the population. Mr. Stevenson had kept a copy next to his bed.
I’ve never watched Pirates of the Caribbean, but the character Jack Sparrow apparently has the piece tattooed on his back. I might have to watch it just to glimpse those words! Leonard Nimoy recited it on an album, and everyone I knew in High School had a copy displayed somewhere. It’s nice to be reminded of the Desiderata for all sorts of reasons. I bet you owned a copy at some point in your life, too. Enjoy!
Desiderata
GO PLACIDLY amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
By Max Ehrmann © 1927
With love,
Kathy x