I have been in considerable trouble over the present danger of war. Twice in one life—and then to find how little I have grown in fortitude despite my conversion. It has done me a lot of good by making me realize how much of my happiness secretly depended on the tacit assumption of at least tolerable conditions for the body: and I see more clearly, I think, the necessity (if one may so put it) which God is under of allowing us to be afflicted—so few of us will really rest all on Him if He leaves us any other support.
About our differences: I feel that whenever two members of different communions succeed in sharing the spiritual life so far as they can now share it, and are thus forced to regard each other as Christians, they are really helping on reunion by producing the conditions without which official reunion would be quite barren. I feel sure that this is the layman’s chief contribution to the task, and some of us here are being enabled to perform it.
You, who are a priest and a theologian, are a different story: and on the purely natural and temperamental level there is, and always has been, a sort of tension between us two which prevents our doing much mutual good. We shall both be nicer, please God, in a better place.
How much would we turn to and depend upon God if our circumstances never exceeded our ability to cope with and overcome them. This scribe, for one, would turn to God less. In fact, without facing major crises in this life, this writer may have never turned wholly to God. Such truth makes clear the admonition to, “be thankful for all things”.
Father, let us today be thankful for the joy you send. Let us also rejoice for the challenges we confront and the different ways we address and overcome them. They are separate sides of the same coin…life in the physical world.
Thankful for all,
Z gardener
Good Morning Garden 
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