The Set of Your Sails

This week I've shared some of my favorite expressions, and today I want to share another: a poem by reknowned poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, of Janesville, Wisconsin.

One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

I've never known much about Ms. Wilcox, but as I read about her on Wikipedia today, I discovered something else that strikes me as interesting. After her husband of 30 years, Robert, died, she was in great grief and was desperately hoping his spirit would communicate from the dead with her. She went to California to speak with a man named Max Heindel about it, and here's what she wrote about that meeting.

In talking with Max Heindel, the leader of the Rosicrucian Philosophy in California, he made very clear to me the effect of intense grief. Mr. Heindel assured me that I would come in touch with the spirit of my husband when I learned to control my sorrow. I replied that it seemed strange to me that an omnipotent God could not send a flash of his light into a suffering soul to bring its conviction when most needed.

"Did you ever stand beside a clear pool of water," asked Mr. Heindel, "and see the trees and skies repeated therein? And did you ever cast a stone into that pool and see it clouded and turmoiled, so it gave no reflection? Yet the skies and trees were waiting above to be reflected when the waters grew calm. So God and your husband's spirit wait to show themselves to you when the turbulence of sorrow is quieted."

What I find interesting are Mr. Heindel's words. Something worth thinking about today.