There are some things that keep out the darkness that continually threatens in anyone’s life. Indeed there are some things that allow us to hope that darkness many never fall. An unshakable faith in a just and compassionate God allows such hope but such faith is given to few and is incalculably hard to maintain through a whole lifetime when so much is sent to undermine even the strongest faith.
One thing I am sure of keeps out the dark. That is the deep and abiding love between a man and a woman who are fortunate enough to find one another.
Love that is sweet and passionate is part of this. There is nothing in life, surely, that is more enchanting. The exchanges between passionate lovers through the ages are an endless delight. Ignace Gelb in his History of Writing tells us that in Eastern Turkestan, a young woman sent her lover a message consisting of a spray of tea leaves, a shoot of grass, a red fruit, a dried apricot, a piece of coal, a flower, a tablet of sugar, a pebble, a falcon’s feather and a nut. The message read: “I can no longer drink tea, I’m pale as grass without you, I blush to think of you, I shrivel in your absence, my heart burns as a coal, you are as beautiful as a flower and as sweet as sugar but is your heart of stone? I’d fly to you if I had wings, I am yours like a nut in your hand.”
