“We are asked today to feel compassionately for everyone in the world; to digest intellectually all the information spread out in public print; and to implement in action every ethical impulse aroused by our hearts and minds. The inter-relatedness of the world links us constantly with more people than our hearts can hold. Or rather - for I believe the heart is infinite - modern communication loads us with more problems than the human frame can carry... my life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.”
I love this book so much that I was hesitant to write a word about it. I drafted this post more than a month ago and have been mulling it over ever since - you know those things that you feel as though if you share them they may be spoiled somehow? That is definitely the case. Gift from the Sea was written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh in 1955. It could absolutely have been written today, and addresses pretty much all of the things that I think about all of the time – simplicity and mindfulness in living, relating life at home to the broader world, and the importance of finding stillness and quiet in which to create. It is the perfect book that came to me at the perfect time, as a gift in the mail in early December. I read it in one sitting, alternating between catching my breath, tearing up, thinking "Y.E.S!" and wondering how she managed to somehow pass through time and space to find me here in the future with her book in my hands, reading the exact words that I needed. Despite the fact that the author has since died and the book was published 61 years ago, this book made me feel like I'm not alone in the world and how I think. (Which is not a small thing.) It reassured me that the world is both beautiful and heartbreaking and has been since the beginning. I’ve been struggling lately with all of the horrific things going on in the world, and how my little life fits into it all. The book provided some much needed perspective, (it was written just after World War II; that alone puts anything into perspective) as well as assurance of some things that I know are true but which can be so easy to forget. I really don't want to say any more about specific chapters and thoughts until I've at least read it a dozen more times. But it seems like that might take awhile, and I wanted you to know that you should get your hands on a copy as soon as you can, fill the tea kettle and settle in by the fire. I hope you love it as much as I do.