Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, August 14, 2008


LIFE has dark secrets; and the hearts are few
That treasure not some sorrow from the world--
A sorrow silent, gloomy, and unknown,
Yet colouring the future from the past.
We see the eye subdued, the practised smile,
The word well weighed before it pass the lip,
And know not of the misery within:
Yet there it works incessantly, and fears
The time to come; for time is terrible,
Avenging, and betraying.

- Letitia Elizabeth Landon, English poet & novelist,
born on this day, 1802


Well! Who doesn’t need a cold splash of Doom on a summer August morning! You’d think that a person with the lovely name of Letitia would have a little more charm. But, I’m using it, primarily because I’ll bet that no one of you has ever heard of Letitia Landon - and here I have contributed to the lifting of your ignorance!

Was it Shakespeare who said, “Time will out”? Well, it’s true. Jesus knew this. He is recorded to have said that whatever was said in secret will be shouted from the housetops. We can subdue our eyes, and we can practice the practised smile, and try our best to make our words well weighed before it pass the lips. But eventually what we really meant will be revealed. Time is terrible / Avenging, and betraying.

So. I looked “inside”. I’m glad to say that I found only one overwhelming sorrow from the world, along with Life’s normal ones. It is the great sorrow of all my friends and pastoral clients who died so young from AIDS. I keep it stuffed most of the time, especially from myself. But something every now and then triggers it, and the tears (and the rage) come to my eyes. And the deep sorrow takes my breath away.

I suppose that Time can be terrible,/ Avenging and betraying. It can also be beautiful, cleansing and redeeming. If you have great hidden Sorrow, let it out. We are not meant, we human beings, to live shackled and in fear.

Brian+