God Sister Teresa
With the new year upon us, I was thinking of checking out my level of charity, in particular those dreaded antipathies that seem to be always with me, and – dare I say it? – with most of us.
The storm of 1987 left the monastery without electricity for fourteen days. After only seven, the dirty socks of a community of 36 began to pile up alarmingly. A fellow novice and I were told to wash them, in a large stone sink full of icy cold water, by hand and with the help of an old-fashioned glass rubbing-board and a scant dessert spoon of soap powder which was carefully measured out for us. As novices we had arrived at the same time and instantly developed a strong mutual antipathy. We expressed this by silently glaring at each other or complaining about each other’s failings to our poor novice mistress.
But halfway through this awful laundry session in a dark and gloomy basement, we both started to giggle. And oddly, after that, we began to tolerate and then positively to like each other.
No sooner has one antipathy been conquered than another rears its ugly head. I have been wondering for some time how to deal with such natural dislikes efficiently, becoming irritated because the only answer is inevitably charity and self-control. Long ago, in the television programme The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, whenever Reggie thought of, saw or heard his mother-in- law, an enormous trotting hippopotamus would flash across the screen, so fast that one wondered if one had actually seen it: subliminal imagery.
This isn’t the perfect technique for dealing with mean-spirited thoughts, but it is a lot better than long-term brooding on someone’s maddening deficiencies: it breaks the train of unpleasant deliberations and, with luck and concentration, we can turn our attention to the astonishing diversity of God’s creativity. At which point, we may gradually find ourselves in a better frame of mind and one which allows us some respite from what is for ourselves, let alone for other people, a very unpleasant and unconstructive way of spending our precious time.
Perhaps we don’t think often enough of the only logical conclusion to turning our back on love: the gradual taking-over of our better selves by a cold loneliness. It would be too awful if the wind were to change and leave us like that. So there really isn’t much alternative to being kind-hearted in thought as well as in action.