I know that I have life
only insofar as I have love.
I have no love
except it come from Thee.
Help me, please, to carry
this candle against the wind.
  ~Wendell Berry, Sabbaths, 2005


Help me, please, to carry
this candle against the wind.
 
What a beautiful image. 
What a painfully beautiful image. 
What an image of grief, of fortitude, of determination, of grit.
What an image of faith. 
 
Tonight, as I write, I see myself in this image. 
 
I have been asking God to make the wind go away. 
My prayer has been
Help me, please,
and take away this wind.
 
I fight the wind so many ways. 
Sometimes, I hunker down behind a rock and try to avoid the wind.  But somehow, the wind always shifts.  It always finds me in my hiding place.
Sometimes, I angrily strike out into the wind, fighting against it, floundering around blindly in its merciless tempest.
Sometimes, I give up and give in to the wind.  I let the gales sweep over me and toss me about, bruising me, slicing me, blinding me.
 
No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, the wind is still there. 
And I am so tired.
I'm tired of the hiding, of the anger, of the giving up.
 
And so tonight I stand here, at this fork in the road, with the wind whipping my spirit and beating mercilessly at my soul.
 
I have life.
I have love.
I have a candle.
 
Help me, please, to carry
this candle against the wind.