THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 70, Issue 4, 16 April 1945, Page 433

THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR

MEDITATION

17 was a woman who wrote: ■* “I am tired of all voices. Friend and foe Have come too nearly with me to the shrine That is the secret kept by wind and fire. Now when the shadowy hands of dusk are cool About my eyes, shall silence like a god, Drive them with whip of starlight from his stairs, Only the small grass striving in its clod, Only the stream, that fragile moonlight bears Like blossoms on its breast, move in this place.” How often in these strenuous times we experience that longing to get away by ourselves for a little while and “think our own thoughts” in peaceful silence. We are now well into our sixth year of war, and thougn we have mercifully been saved from the bombings and hardships which have been the fate of so many people in other countries, we are not insensible to their sufferings, nor have we escaped our share of grief and loss. The tempo of our living has inevitably quickened, and strain and anxiety over absent loved ones take constant toll of our energies, so that the need for periods of solitude and quiet becomes more imperative than ever before. For not only do such spells relax the tension in our nerves and benefit us physically, but they also give us a chance to adjust our ideas to changing conditions, to restore our serenity of spirit, and renew our belief in truth and goodness, so that we feel once more that we have something we can give to those who come to us for comfort and help. I once asked one of the busiest women I know the secret of her tireless activity, (No family was ever better looked after 1 than hers; she kept open house, was a tower of strength to the various organisations of which she was a member, and always found time to have a friendly chat with a neighbour or assist anyone in trouble). Her reply was that she made it a rule to set apart a short

P'ion °f each day for meditation, pref era My first thing in the morning. “If 1 miss time °f Q uiet > everything seems lo % et out .°f hand and 1 lose the f eel ' °f en S able to . cope, she ~ exMaybe her choice of time would not suit all of us, and maybe our timetable is already overcrowded, - but if we are to give of our best, we must make some opportunity to “detach ourselves from the mechanics of living” and contemplate life itself. There are many tests of friendship c . , • j? i Ji' ■?’ but to my mind one of the most tmportant is the ability to be silent with a person “More than words that flow from friend to friend In utterance unbroken to the end, Are'velvet aisles of silence when no sound Dare violate a language more proUnd My happiest memory of a recent holiday is not of the gaiety and laughter with which it abounded, but of seeing three tuis sipping honey from the redgold flax-flowers. and watching the delicate tracery of sunlight and shadow among trees, and the tide weaving white foam-patterns along a curve of shoreand sharing that beauty silently

with a friend. That is companionship of a very special and very precious kind. ( S ° any wonders are achieved in ence. A 7/ •,i / • / ' lonTarm'' " 7 ,r °”' The rose breaks into blossoming through silence. The stars come from the dark without alarm. The first green blade of grass pushes tn silence From the vast caverns of earth’s ri. mystery ' , The snow comes down and wraps the world in silence The forest fern is mute- 'th i forest fern is mute, so is the tree, 1 he beautiful and good are wrought tn silence, . ... We would do well to cultivate This mood of Nature, knowing that . * n silence We may augment our strength and dream, and wait.” We cannot evade the difficulties and disappointments that fall to our lot. but the fortitude with which we face them will be greatly strengthened by our habit of thinking for & ourselves and our endeavour to un- irWFjf derstand the fun- fl damental truths of ff life. V