Hobblestone rang the bell. No
sooner had the door opened when Hobblestone was engulfed in a wonderful Aunt-Millificent-Hug, the kind that
communicates a lot without any words being said. She took the piece of pineapple upside-down
cake, cooing nice words about Virgil’s mother (Aunt Millificent is one of the
few people who ever says kind words about Virgil’s mother. That’s why
she gets all the cake.)
They went into the kitchen.
Hobblestone sat down and she brought him a glass of Dr. Pepper ®. (Hmmmm . . .There seems to be a relationship between
kitchens and Good Places; have you
noticed that? Is it true for you as well? There are exceptions, of course. Ask
Fr. Anderssohn—two S’s like Mendelssohn—who was the Pastor of Hobblestone’s
church. Father’s mother had a stroke while washing the dishes in
the rectory one day, fell to the floor and sadly enough, expired, while still
wearing her apron and with soapsuds on her hands. And no, I’m not going to tell
you what brand of dish soap she was using. What Matters
here is the point I’m trying to make: Most likely, poor Fr. Anderssohn
doesn’t consider kitchens to be Good
Places).
But I
digress. Hobblestone and Aunt Millificent shared the piece of pineapple
upside-down cake that Virgil’s mother had sent over. Yummy! Then, after Aunt
Millificent had cleared the table, he handed the Disappointing Letter from Graduate School to her and sat
back, eyes downcast, as she read it.
“Oh,
my!” she said. She put down the letter and looked at him with concern. She said
nothing more. She simply sat with him in silence, waiting for him to say what
he needed to say.
Rule # 115: Waiting in silence is often a good thing to do when
others are in distress.
Finally,
the damn burst. Hobblestone poured out his disappointment, his dismay, his
bewilderment, his sadness, and everything and anything else he needed to get
out of his system. Aunt Millificent simply sat and listened. Listened deeply,
listening “with the ear of her heart,” as
Saint Benedict says in his Rule. She kept her silence even after Hobblestone stopped
speaking. She simply quietly with him and gave some space to his pain.
Rule # 75: Don’t ever tell anyone that you “feel their pain.”
That’s stupid and patronizing. No one can feel the pain except for the person
who’s experiencing the pain.
After a
time, at just the right moment, asked him to play a game with her. Aunt
Millificent believed that a lot could be accomplished by playing certain kinds
of games. This game was going
to be challenge for him because of what had happened to him, but he was always
open to playing Aunt Millificent’s games. They usually ended up doing
him a lot of good.
Would you like to know what the
game was? I’ll tell you what the game was:
She
said to Hobblestone, “God gave me a very
sweet gift today: I was sitting by the window reading my book when the
landscaping guys came by to take care of the lawn. Their lawn mower made a lot
of noise, and my first impulse was to get annoyed, but then I remembered that
there are often little gifts hidden inside unexpected things. So instead, I
closed my eyes and listened to the lawn mower and the weed whacker and imagined
that I was hearing a symphony. And what an interesting symphony it was, because
each piece of machinery spoke with a different voice. And as I sat there,
listening with my eyes closed, all of a sudden this wonderful fragrance came
through my window—the fragrance of freshly mowed grass. Oh, it was so
wonderful! The symphony now had a scent to it as one of the instruments. So I
just sat and savored the moment for myself and was really glad I crossed the
bridge from Being Annoyed to being
grateful.
“Now, my dear, it’s your turn:
tell me how God has blessed you recently.”
If you’d like to play the game too, go
ahead.Think of how God has blessed you within the past 24 hours.
Hobblestone and Aunt Millificent
stories for a while, until Aunt Millificent was aware that he had finally set
his foot back on the bridge to the Good
Place. Then, at just the right moment, she moved on to her Main Point. (Well, actually, it was God’s main point, but
I hope you know what I mean by now.)
She reached out for the book she
had been reading and opened it. “I was reading this book while sitting by the window,”
she said, “when you called me to tell me about the Dissapointing Letter from Graduate School. Interestingly enough, the passage I
was reading is related to your predicament. Isn’t it wonderful,” she said,
“when just the right thing comes along to help us, at just the right time. Would
it be okay for me to read it to you? Hobblestone was eager to hear what the
passage said. He knew from experience that Aunt Millificent always seemed to
have just the right thing to offer him at just the right time.
Here’s the passage:
[God]knows
that you do not know what is good for you and he makes it his business to give
it to you. He does not mind disappointing you. You thought you were going
eastward, he takes you to the west. You were on the point of striking something
dangerous, he turns the rudder and brings you safe to port. . . . If pirates
cross your bow, and unexpected puff of wind takes you out of their reach. . . .
The journey continues without interruption, and in spite of rocks and pirates
and continual storms pursues its even way!
Now it was Hobblestone’s turn to sit in silence. He closed
his eyes and asked her to read the passage again. His breathing became more
relaxed, and as she read, his breath fell more and more deeply into his body.
He shed a tear, but it was not a tear of sorrow. It was the tear of a child who
had been lost and tried to be brave until at last he was back with his parent
and was safe—safe enough to finally shed tears.
Hobblestone
was safe. He was home. He knew he was being cared for, not only by Aunt
Millificent, but by Providence itself. Interestingly enough, the reading came
from a book called “Self-abandonment to
Divine Providence” (Book II, chapter 1, section 8).
And for the first time since
he read that Disappointing Letter from
Graduate School, he was at peace. In fact, he told Aunt Millificent that
he was very interested in seeing where it was that God was going to take him
since that graduate school was obviously not a bridge he was meant to cross. And
even though he was still a little sad, he was looking forward to finding out
what was in store for him.
Can
you, dear reader, apply this to your view of your own life? If not, simply ask
for the wisdom to be able to see things this way.
And,
before we conclude, here are a few things that you don’t have to bother considering;
1) How Guttenberg came up with the idea of creating a printing press; 2)
statistics regarding strokes; 3) kitchens of Norway.
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