July 15
Contentment with what is allotted is the highest gate. Whoever recognises the Giver in what is given finds even the bitter turned sweet.
The Revival of the Religious Sciences (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Contentment with what is allotted is the highest gate. Whoever recognises the Giver in what is given finds even the bitter turned sweet.
A gift you don't like is seldom something you put away at once. The scarf is a colour you would never have chosen, and still you wear it when the two of you meet. It hasn't become any lovelier for that. But it comes from someone who thought of you while choosing it, and in that moment this weighs more than your taste.
It gets harder with what nobody has visibly chosen: a rejection, a diagnosis, a move you didn't want. Here there is no face for whose sake you might accept something. All you are left with is the question of whether the thing is meant for you all the same – whether it was addressed to you or merely fell on you.
This question has two sides. If you take everything as meant, you easily unlearn objecting, even where something could be changed. If you take nothing as meant, you are left alone with your misfortune as with a letter that went to the wrong address.
By now you wear the scarf even on days when you don't see each other. You can't say exactly when that began.
