How curious for me to see that a dying rose is more beautiful to me than most of the living things around me.  There is meaning in that. Maria and I were talking about trust on our walk this morning, and I told her that she was one of the only people on the earth – perhaps the first – that I fully trusted.  She freed me from the curse of trusting animals more than people, it is better to trust and love both. She trusts many people, she is an inspiration for me in that way, she has helped me become more accepting and tolerant just from watching her do it.

But trust has been hard for me, a shrink told me that was typical of children who experienced trauma of one kind or another. Every morning, I get the most beautiful messages from all over the country and some of the world, some via e-mail, others by paper mail, others in the various comments, notifications and replies that are now part of our technological consciousness. Peace of mind is harder and harder to find.

Almost all of the messages are quite beautiful, they talk of people having coffee, starting the day with me, the dogs and donkeys, Maria and the blog. They talk of my writing having meaning for them, about their own lives and  hopes and dreams, about things to think about, a life to consider. I love these messages, they are food for my soul.

In addition to these messages, there are often a few angry ones, some hateful, some disapproving or contemptuous. I learned long ago to skip these messages, not to read them or reply to them, it is what the angry people need. Dr. King reminded us to never get so low as to let people make you hate them.  I got one message this morning from someone angry at me about my lapses in grammar.

I like the messages I get from  frustrated and retired English teachers, they wish me well and care about me, they are just trying to save my grammatical soul, poor things. So was Miss McCarthy, whom I sometimes brought to tears with my grammatical issues. I just never really cared about it, and I will be honest, I still don’t. Grammar is good, but it is a mistake to equate good writing with good grammar, they are not the same thing. This is why God created editors, bless them all. I l love mine and need them. But on the blog, I am my own editor, the way I like it. There is nothing between you and my writing and you and my ideas and photos but a keyboard and some cables or air. A miracle of freedom, I never had it before, and I like it.

I love it.

This summer, an angry person (you know the story) sent me some hurtful messages right after my open heart surgery, I was talking to my friend Dr. Karen Thompson (she gave me Red) about it, and she says she prays for people whose lives are so sad and empty that they send hateful messages to strangers, hiding beyond all of this miraculous technology. What a sad use of it, she said, she always prays for people like that.

I should too, she said.

I don’t pray much, I am not a conventionally religious person, but Karen’s advice touched my heart and soul both, and so since that exchange, I have continued my long policy of never responding to such messages, and consigning their senders to my spam folder, which is hungry to receive them and fat and happy. Mostly I just ignore them. It is true that life is just too interesting to waste even a second on the things you hate, or that hate you.

But if I sincerely prayed for this spiteful messengers, than it would strengthen me and my spiritual life each time, it would be a gift to me, it would make me stronger and more grounded, it would move me an inch closer to a spiritual life. We live in a world with anger, what a gift this could be. The angry become hollow and scarred, the lights and colors dim in their presence.

I did take Karen’s advice, and I now pray automatically for the angry messengers. And Karen was right, another precious gift to me from a deeply spiritual person of faith. I am sorry it took me so long in life to grasp this message, the Dalai Lama said it took him a long time also. That is comforting.

To the snide letter about my grammar, I stopped, took a breath and closed my eyes. I am feeling sad for you, I prayed. I wish you happiness and peace, I wish you a life that is so full of joy, love, compassion and meaning that you never again waste a second of it to send an angry or hateful message across the great void of time and space to a stranger. Could there be an emptier life?  I pray for you not to be small. I wish more than that for you, as I wish it for me, and I thank you for the great gift of understanding that I must never do the same to a fellow human being if I want to become the person I wish to be.

When I pray like that, I think of the windshield wiper on my car wiping the stuff off of my windshield, my soul feels cleansed and purified. I am here to tell you this is an important discovery for me in our disconnected and sometimes angry world. To pray for what I hate and for what hates me, and to take that anger and bless it, it makes me stronger every time.