And though it is deep, deep night / You feel that the night is done …
Several times in life I have spent years working for an idea which I believed would improve people’s lives – be it land ownership for farm workers or share ownership for company employees – until the idea gained some acceptance, and then I saw the same nay-sayers who discredited it all along turn around and take advantage of it for their own profit. At such times it is easy to become cynical; but I found strength in Kipling’s verses -“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken / Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools…”
Sometimes, however, events are totally out of our control. We may be caught up in a war or other calamity and can only watch as we are swept by the avalanche. At such times one can gain inner calm from taking all the actions that are within one’s power, and then letting go and resigning oneself to accept the outcome, whatever it may be. On such occasions, ‘Hymn before Action’ gave me the inspiration to feel deep humility in face of the inevitable.
Life is bound to have periods of hardship – the death of a parent or a child, the break-up of a marriage, losing one’s job. In such difficult times people need encouragement and strength. For me Kipling has been such a source of inner strength. Whenever there was a rough patch in life, his verses came to my mind to give inspiration. It was a relief to mentally hurl defiance at the hardship, in the words of ‘A Song in Storm’ (even the title shouts defiance!) – “Then welcome Fate’s discourtesy“.
In particular I remember a time when the cause I was working for seemed all but lost. The organization responsible for my work was in disarray. The project on which my team worked constantly had to justify its very existence. Every six months the person in charge of our work was replaced and the first idea of their replacement was invariably to demolish all the work of his or her predecessors. At the time a visiting friend asked me how things were progressing. I could find no better answer than a quote from ‘The Storm Cone’ – “After each shudder and check she moves/ She moves, with all save purpose lost…”