Where did I find this? (I don’t know.) How long have I had it? (A very long time.) Why have I kept it? (It’s one of my dear treasures.) Perhaps it is time to share it. (I think so.)
So here I sit, in front of my computer, and wonder how to begin. I think it’s fair to say that I found it at least thirty years ago, but how I found it is totally vague.
I can only be certain of one thing and that is that I love the words and completely agree with the concepts. I have used it once as a Christmas greeting and that, perhaps, is when I put it into a large manila envelope and filed it away. It is recently that I found it again, said “Oh My. It’s a long time since I’ve read you, my friend.” And I began reading it.
GREETING
I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is very much that, while I cannot give it, you can take…. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant. Take Peace! 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 their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendour, woven of love, by wisdom with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you will touch the angels hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angels hand is there; the gift is there, and the wonders of an over-shadowing 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 pilgrims together, wending through an unknown country, home. And so, at this time I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greeting, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.
From a letter written by Fra Giovanni 1513 A.D.
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