This week, until 15 November, Kevin Mayhew Ltd are offering 10 per cent off The Teacher, normally retailing at £14.99. That means a saving of £1.50 using the code UNFOLDING10 when ordering the book from the company’s website. Just type the code into the relevant box at the online checkout between the dates given.
Meanwhile, here’s the third of the sessions I’ll be posting this week from the book, to run alongside this promotion.
Despair
I talked to one in the grip of despair, not just low but utterly hopeless, such that they could find no peace, no joy, no reason to keep on living – each day seeming as pointless as the next.
And though I tried to comfort them, to show how much I cared, it appeared that nothing I could do or say could lift the clouds and restore their spirits.
So I said to the Teacher, ‘Help me to understand what they are feeling. Give me some insight.’
And the Teacher answered, ‘Everything is utterly futile, pointless, a waste of time. What do people gain from all the work at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains for ever. It is all tedious, more than words can begin to say. The eye finds no fulfilment in what it sees, nor the ear in what it hears. History goes on repeating itself: whatever we do is ultimately the same as what’s been done before; there is nothing original under the sun. This business of life God has given us to be getting on with is not a happy one. Everything we do in this world is an empty illusion, a vain pursuit of the wind.’
And I glimpsed for a moment the pain of despair, the hopelessness of those caught in its maelstrom, sucked ever deeper into its crushing depths until nothing and no one seems to matter and life feels without purpose. I grasped something of the misery of each day seeming to be sapped of a little more joy, a little more hope.
‘Is there nothing I can do?’ I asked the Teacher. ‘Nothing I can say?’
And the Teacher answered, ‘Even the sweetest of songs is as vinegar poured on a wound to one who is heavy in heart; it is like stripping off their clothes on an icy day.’
I saw then that attempts to help can, rather, hinder; to lift up, instead beat down; to ease pain, increase it further – that what we intend as kindness can be cruellest of all, adding only to the burden of pain, guilt and sorrow.
For there are no easy answers, no magic words to spirit despair away. The sun still shines, but holds no warmth. The flowers blossom, but have no beauty. The birds sing, but their tune is bland. Though life is rich, yet it feels poor.
And I understood that what the despairing need is not advice but understanding, not to listen but to speak; to open up and be heard without judgement or condemnation, impatience or expectation, so that, however isolated they may feel, they will know they are not alone.
The lesson I have learnt is this: where lives lie broken and despair hangs heavy, never seek to give answers; give rather of yourself – your time, your love, your care – for where life has lost its spark, we can only gently fan the smouldering embers until the flame ignites once more. And should you be the one despairing, do not lose heart . . . for though you may not see it now, and may not think it possible, night will finally give way to morning, tears to laughter, and winter again to spring.