From The Manse Window
From the manse window
IT was foggy when I woke up this morning. The sort of thick, all-enveloping fog that turns the whole world into a place of mystery, confounding vision and muffling sound.
Even the sensation of walking in this kind of fog can be unnerving.
Our familiar landscape is suddenly familiar no more – and worse still, we can’t see what lies ahead.
Perhaps, on a deeper level, fog reminds us that we can’t always be in charge of everything in our lives.
“Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes,” the American minister and counsellor Hugh Prather once said. He’d certainly had experience of such things.
As a young and unsuccessful poet, he had, on a whim, sent his personal journal to a small publishing firm – only to find, to everyone’s surprise, that it became a runaway bestseller.
Full of thoughtful musings on his “struggle to become a person’’, “Notes To Myself” undoubtedly changed the course of his life.
Sadly, not all such changes of direction are so serendipitous.
Illness, accidents and other unwanted happenings can all loom up from the hidden path in front of us.
Yet even such apparently unwelcome obstacles don’t always have to lead to disaster.
You only have to look at someone like Walt Disney, who turned his steps towards the cinema industry only after several failed business ventures – with legendary results.
On a smaller scale, my young friend Bethany was devastated when her exam results meant she was unable to go to the university of her choice.
But the need to rethink her options gave her time to decide if the academic life was really what she wanted.
Instead, in a radical change of plan, Bethany chose to start up her own small design business – and is enjoying every minute.
Perhaps, when the way ahead seems unclear, it’s worth reminding ourselves of such stories.
It’s not automatically a disaster to find ourselves in a place in which we’d never expected to be.
Even when we are so “fog-bound” that we don’t know which way to move, it’s no bad thing just to pause for a moment.
The fog obscuring our view may clear a little if we only give it time, and meanwhile we can allow ourselves to relax a little and enjoy not having to be constantly rushing ahead.
Fog doesn’t last for ever. So let’s just accept it, and the breathing space that it allows us. And, as the writer Jack Kerouac once said, “When the fog is over and the stars and the moon come out at night it’ll be a beautiful sight.” ■ Next week: Janice Ross discusses the spirit of Thanksgiving.