Prayers and Meditations

November 28, 1916

Thou madest me read these childish babblings once again, for they are awkward attempts at expression of a mind still in its infancy and all this seemed to me far, very remote, clad in the charm and purity of the experiences of a candid and enthusiastic childhood. And yet, before Thee, O eternal Lord, I have not grown any older and have not made any progress; the expression of today will not be better than that of those early days. The mind is still as poor and clumsy as before. And what could it have to express that is so remarkable? No sensational experience: all experiences now seem simple and natural. No powerful or exceptional new idea, none of those ideas which fill one with the joy of discovery: all ideas, whatever form they may take, now seem like old acquaintances one greets amicably in passing, but from whom one expects nothing new. No scrupulous and detailed psychological analysis, exposing some yet unexplored inner recess: internal complications no longer exist in themselves; they are faithful and impartial reflections of all the surrounding psychological movements; and to describe what is going on in the being would be at once as complicated and monotonous as to describe the world in its almost exclusively subsconscient gropings and wanderings.

Poverty, poverty! Thou hast placed me in an arid and bare desert and yet this desert is sweet to me as everything that comes from Thee, O Lord. In this dull and wan greyness, in this dim ashen light, I taste the savour of the infinite spaces: the pure breeze of the open seas,

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the powerful breath of the free heights constantly fill my heart and penetrate my life; all barriers have fallen, within and around me, and I feel like a bird opening its wings for an unrestrained flight. But the bird remains perched upon a rock, its wings outspread against the grey, fleecy sky, awaiting, in order to soar upwards, the coming of something it expects without knowing what it is. As it no longer has any chains to check its flight, it no longer dreams of flying away. Conscious of its freedom, it does not enjoy it, and remains like the others, among the others, perched on the ground in the midst of the dark and dense fog.

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