Infinitely patient

We’re just back from a whirlwind tour of old friends – North to South down one side of the country, and South to North up the other side again. And by way of the miracle of the iPad I was in touch with another treasured friend in the US via our car’s front passenger seat, whilst in a traffic queue on the M1!

Old friends have the patience of Job. One recently gave me a beautiful greeting card with the message

The best mirror is an old friend …

And I’m immeasurably grateful to friends old and new, and often wonder whether they know what a life sustaining presence they have been and are in my life. The travelling to meet with friends becomes mirrored by the travelling through shared history. And writing, for me, is an old friend too. Reflecting this evening upon a happy couple of days away I turned again to another journal …

Talking to paper is talking to the divine. Paper is infinitely patient. Each time you scratch on it, you trace part of yourself, and thus part of the world, and thus part of the grammar of the universe. It is a huge language, but each of us tracks his or her particular understanding of it.

Burghild Nina Holzer
A Walk Between Heaven and Earth

That’s absolutely it! Whether talking or listening to persons or to paper (and I do both) – we’re engaged in dialogue with the divine – and enriched again and again by another’s “particular understanding of it”.