Serenity

You know how there are some books that if you got it when you read the title, you probably don’t really need to read the whole book?  I’ve had some in that category sit on my shelves for decades, finally moved on to the Oxfam bookshop when I faced up to the reality that I only really needed the title.

For example ~

The Courage to Be (Paul Tillich)

Becoming Who I Am (Harry Williams)

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Thomas Merton)

Well, that last title is almost a book by itself!  Such a big idea – the guilty bystander!  Something that so needed saying!  In a world that speaks meaninglessly of innocent bystanders, a recognition of the reality that (as Edmund Burke put it) all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.  Guilty bystanders. 

But I did read a bit of that book by accident the other day, when I came across this quotation from it online:

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times. Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace."

Merton, you said it!!

Yes, yes, and a million times yes.

On reflection today, I decided he was recommending serenity.

But – O worlds within worlds – there is more than mere happenstance in my thus connecting the words REFLECTION and SERENITY.

I recommend Serenity too.

Because at eleven o’clock this morning, as I sat on the gold baroque sofa under the sumptuous gathered fabric ceiling with its ruby chandelier (life’s like that in Hastings), in Serenity Hair  & Beauty Salon waiting for Luke – whom I’d never met – to make his critical inspection of what a year’s rough hacking with blunt kitchen scissors had done to my hair, I heard the following conversation:

Small boy: Flexion!  Flexion!  Flexionflexionflexion!

Mother: Reflection.

Small boy: Flexion!

Mother: Reflection.

Small boy: Flexion!

Mother: Re–

Small boy: Flexion!

Mother: Re–

Small boy: Flexion!

Mother: Re–

Small boy: Flexion!

Mother: Re–

Small boy: Flexion! Flexion!

Small boy one, mother nil.

I thought this could go on for some time.  In Hastings the interior décor may be unsurpassed, but at times the conversation lacks sparkle.

But Luke – who, it transpired, worked in the WEST END (of London, US and Aussies – that’s special!) before his feet brought him back to the edge of the ocean in Sussex where his life really belongs – then appeared.  What a relief!  He likes messy hair too!  No blow-drying into a smooth busby!  No wax!  Wax?  I know.  Funny, isn’t it.  What next?   He said he’d put serum on my hair when he was done, and in a quiet murmur echoed my ‘Whatever’ in mock despair.

He did well, I think, Luke.   Opinions?