Only Patches
There have probably been some difficult patches in all our lives, times when someone we know and respect have spoken harshly and thought less of us, leaving us feeling demised. I too have experienced this recently when a bearded man approached me with his patronising smile and as cold as an ocean shell. Shooting from his lip he mocks my condition; his tongue is impressively matter of fact and I am shocked at the brevity of his remarks. My gut writhes with spirals of nausea. Smiling like a meerkat and with a snap in his chatter he feels to urge to sermonise, but I quell it without difficulty. I spoke back to him in a tongue that ends not with a question mark, but a full stop which shuts the door on conversation then locks it.
Others may be as keen as lemmings to follow him but not I, for he has failed himself and needs to rise at least as far as his knees. I believe he may need more spiritual growth. This disingenuous man had put a dent in my mood and tested my faith and it untunes me if only for a moment, but it doesn’t really matter one thought, after all they are only patches. Words are cheap, it’s our deeds and the marks we leave behind by which we will be judged. As important information comes to mind it takes me back to something that happened a long time ago when I was just a boy.
My thoughts are transported back in time to a wonderful moment when I truly understood what having faith really meant. Whilst flying my home-made kite one windy day, a local boy standing at his mother’s gate as he often did who never smiled or spoke to anyone heard my cries of joy as my kite darts and weaves in the sky. As I look back, I saw him waving and calling to me. I went over to him, he enquired what I was doing to cause my excitement, I told him I had made a kite and was flying it for the first time. After a few brief moments he came back with me. No-one has ever let me fly a kite before he says, and before he knew what was happening, I handed him the strings. Deano was now flying the kite and as he pulled back a sudden gust of wind took the kite higher into the sky. Within moments he drew breath of sudden joy and wore a smile that could last all day. Nothing strange about that you may say, until I tell you that Deano was blind since birth. But Deano I cried, you can’t see the colourful kite, how it twists and turns in the breeze. No, I can’t, but I can imagine it as I feel its pull.
What a beautiful heartfelt lesson this nine-year-old boy had taught me, and one to be shared by all. The memory of that experience will remain imperishable in my heart for the rest of my life. This wonderful moment to me was our daily bread for the eyes, it is nature’s poetry, and you can’t help but have belief in an all-wise creator.
