The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see – and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.
Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty – beneath its covering – that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.
Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.
And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.
—
|
This letter was written by Fra Giovanni Giocondo to his friend, Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513.
|
|
Tis a Gift to Receive 
What can i say? I’ve lived in colombia, SA, now, for a year and a little bit more. I’ve not been to the states since that day in august when we landed here in this country not knowing a soul and hardly knowing a word in a foreign language. And now to go back? For a visit, with my whole family(we number seven), and see what i left behind(my friends and my dreams that i had to lay down? When my heart is still here in colombia with all my dear friends and familiar street corners? And being an intense, sentimental person?
I know a little about what your saying, anita, about the thing which you dislike is what you like… waiting on public transportation for way too long when you have mounds of work awaiting you? Yet i would hardly trade it in for my little car i left behind…
blessings! I honestly can’t imagine what it would be like to return to live in the states after not living there for so long!
Strengths are also weaknesses, and weaknesses are strengths… and they’re usually the things that get inside your heart to stay. Thinking of you. You said this so well.
Anita…
I get it. I wish I could fix it. I would if I could.
In this case, the familiar is comfortable. LRM
Totally get it!