Feeling gray today. Maybe it was the late night of counseling. Maybe its the upcoming retreat and being away from my family. Probably also that I hoped to kayak this weekend during the retreat but just don’t think I can fit it in. But even more, feeling the weight of friends dying and/or destroying their lives in one way or another. Anyway, this poem came to mind:
I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow;
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh, the things I learned from her
When sorrow walked with me.
Robert Browning Hamilton, as quoted in Philip Ryken’s commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations, p. 755
Musings on Faith and Psychology 