June 19
In his will is our peace. He is the sea to which all flows that he creates and nature moves.
The Divine Comedy – Paradiso (freely rendered)
Listening mode
In his will is our peace. He is the sea to which all flows that he creates and nature moves.
Sometimes something you had been counting on falls through. A cancellation arrives, or the train doesn't run. After the first irritation you notice something unexpected: relief. You did want the evening. But you would also have had to see it through, be on time, talkative, alert.
This relief is ambiguous. Part of it is mere release. You weren't the one who cancelled, so you have nothing to explain. Another part is harder to grasp. For a moment you don't have to be the origin of everything that happens. Something else has decided, and what is left to you is to consent.
From outside the two look the same. But one relief secretly hopes to get off this lightly more often. The other does not make your will disappear. It only gives it an unfamiliar direction: it now turns towards something you did not arrange yourself. How much calm can lie in that you hardly notice as long as you decide everything yourself.
You take your shoes off again. Which of the two reliefs it was may only show in how you spend the evening that is now yours, unplanned.
