After
a 30 minute run in Cambridge (dropped Robert off at school). I begin to see the
parable of the rich man being like a camel passing through the eye of a needle
in my own life.
First,
my real purpose is to find my way to God, to want to be with Him above all
else. Riches, my own situation in life,
distract me from this goal. They are not
bad in themselves, just so distracting!
But then I worry if I will be able to do all right without riches. What can I do to get closer to God? And then I remember the second part of the
parable: with God all things are possible.
In other words, if I trust in God, He will take care of me.
Got
the car washed and took Cathy, Jeffrey and Mara to the train station where they
caught the 11:47 train with Camilla, Robin, Edmund and Rupert to the Lord
Mayor's parade in London. I picked up
Robert and with Thomas, the three of us took the 1:47 train to London and met
everyone in front of St. Paul's at 3 PM.
We enjoyed the "Fayre" for awhile, had dinner at Burger King
and then watched the fireworks over the Thames from the front of the Unilever
Building. It was a fantastic light
show! We caught the 6:32 return train
and were home by 7:30 for "The Ladykillers." the only one of the 10
Alec Guinness movies I managed to see.
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| At the Fayre |
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| The Fayre |
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| The Fayre |
Sunday
10 November. 7:45 a.m. Sunny, first good frost-- everything has
frost on it, much more than we have yet had.
It seems that the seasons progress here in a very orderly way. The leaves are gone from most trees, though
occasionally I will still see a horse chestnut, they are lovely! Oaks in Cambridge still have most of their
leaves.
I
had an interesting dream, and I will try and sort it out. Dreams for me seem to bring a fundamental
truth, even if they are not completely decipherable.
The
first thing I remember is that I was back in Las Vegas for a partnership
meeting. There seemed to be a lot of
activity in which I was not involved. I
remember D. and W. in particular. W. I
think ignored me and D. greedily wished for his sabbatical time (I say greedily
in a nice way, as if one greedily devoured a delicious cake). G. then told me, "Boy you've come back
at a good time, we're flush with money," indicating there would be money
for bonuses. I was sort of surprised but
the prospect of more money seemed a good one, though as the time went on and
everyone's hours and money were looked at, I knew mine would be the lowest and
therefore I would not be getting much.
During
the second dream I wanted to wake up and start writing about my life: this time
I had something more like a sudden eye-opening awareness, to the effect that
everything in the world and in what I am and what I do is suffused with the
glory of God. I am not even sure what it
was I dreamed now, but I remember thinking, as I awoke at some time during the
night, that there was Cathy lying next to me, a gift from God, a sign of God's
glory. I resolved, in my dream, to live
the rest of my life with this consciousness.
Perhaps
this awareness and dream is a direct result from reading the Inferno last week
and thinking of all those dead people!
Yesterday,
I thought, while running, about the rich man and his possessions and the
kingdom of heaven: how we rich (I include myself) become so distracted with
earthly things that we take our minds off of the main goal, our relationship
with God. (The same thing often happens
to me here: I get distracted from the business of writing by bills, letters,
purchasing things, trips.) My idea
yesterday was how, if nothing is impossible with God, then I must trust in God
that I will get by in life without riches, and not worry about how I can
provide for my family. I'm not sure if
that is logical or makes any sense, other than that I had the idea of a new
need to trust completely in God.
Yesterday
I began to think of my death a little.
(Dorothy Sayers remarked how the concept of infinity troubles some
children and all poets. I consider
myself in both groups.) I thought how
the unreal world will be real, and this "real" world will be unreal
and die. I can't help but think of death
like an airplane ride that someone else is taking, sounds like a good idea
(beautiful scenery, going far, exciting trip), and I love to see people off and
contemplate taking my own trips, but it's hard to imagine the terror if that
flight were to crash. To the outsider it
is terrible and hard to imagine, but try to put yourself in it and imagine, and
it seems all very unreal.
9:15
First Communion Mass. Very noisy! Then
to Cambridge at 2:30 for the Mozart children's concert. Dinner at Pizza Express. Nothing great. It was Remembrance Sunday poppies everywhere
the past few weeks.
Monday
11 November. 1:15 p.m.
Mass.
Then took car to ATS to fix a flat in the front left tire. (Friday night at St. John's?) 12:57 train
to London then to Green Park underground.
Much walking: to Harrod's, Walton Street, Bond Street, Oxford Street. Deer
near Stanstead.
Idea
that like Yeats' "Wild Swans at Coole" the ocean, Flintridge, other
places I come back to present a stability and a perspective from which to view
my life.
8:15
p.m. Stanstead Station.
On
the way home from London on another adventure into selfish shopping. I am beginning to tire of my own lack of
discipline here. In remorse I feel a
need to lavish more time and things on Cathy.
Perhaps
this is simply another part of my education?
Thinking
today that riding on the Tube is like studying when I was in college. A feeling that I wanted to be alone, but
alone in the midst of a crowd. It just
doesn't seem to do to be really alone!
Today, more than before, I listened to the sounds around me. The Tube car seemed to take breaths, this
train car sings. Rockety, rockety is a
sound they all make, of course. Then
there is the sound of silence inside the car, with the people. And the silent sound of their footsteps on
the train station platform. Shuffle,
shuffle. In London at Charing Cross,
it's clack, clack across the stone floors.
This
is a particularly noisy train, with wheels outdoors (the vent is open above the
window) rattling, like a plate of dishes.
The noises are even present when the train slows, and there is a creak,
creak, like an old bed, a soft creak, a silent creak almost.
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