“Alfred,”
said Mother, “I am in the dumps, in the doldrums, and I just can’t shake off
this feeling of lethargy.”
“Horse
Latitudes,” Mother, “Horse Latitudes,” said Alfred. “I was feeling much the
same thing.”
“What are
Horse Latitudes, Alfred,” asked Mother?
“The old tales,” said Alfred, “tell us that
when sailing ships got in the subtropical zone where winds were weak and sails
would hang limp, the ships would just sit becalmed waiting for a breeze. As
water and food began to be depleted they would throw their horses and cattle
overboard to save on supplies.”
“Oh,
Alfred,” said Mother, “say it isn’t so.”
“Well,”
said Alfred, “In any event the word ‘doldrums’ is another nautical term for
getting stuck in the subtropical zone. I
remember a poem by Coleridge that describes it pretty well:
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, no breath no motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”[i]
“That,”
said Mother, emphatically, “is exactly how I feel, stuck! What can we do,
Alfred, what can we do?”
“In a way
Mother, it’s the Mid-Lent Blues, and it’s a long way to Easter.” said Alfred, “I’m
in a bit a funk myself, and I surely wish I hadn’t given up smoking for Lent.
It’s dashed hard. I’ve been thinking
about it, and I have an idea. I learned a long time ago in business that if I
wanted to succeed I had to just keep putting one foot in front of the other no
matter how I felt. It is sort of like Cricket, “Don’t worry about the ball
hitting the wicket, just keep running between the wickets if you want to rack
up a score.”
“We need to
do something, Alfred,” said Mother. How do you get out of the doldrums?”
“First,”
said Alfred, “I remind myself not to poke around at my feelings to take my
temperature. If I did that in business I
wouldn’t get anywhere. Then in business I pay special attention to keeping a
regular discipline about the things I needed to do. So I thought that if I did
the same thing spiritually it would turn out just fine.”
“Alfred,”
said Mother, “Don’t beat around the bush. Get to it! What did you do?”
“Well,
Mother,” said Alfred it was actually very simple. I decided to do Morning
Prayer from The Book of Common Prayer. When things got busy last month I
slacked off, but I have a suggestion. Why don’t we do Morning Prayer together
at the breakfast table every morning?”
“Really,
Alfred?” said Mother, “But I like to do the Sudoku in the paper every morning.”
“That’s
perfectly alright Mother,” said Alfred. “I like to do the Crossword. How about
having a second cup of coffee, doing the crossword and Sudoku, and then doing
Morning Prayer?”
“Alfred,”
said Mother, “that sounds just fine.
Let’s try it?”
“Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear
as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not
rebellious; I turned not backward” [Isaiah 50:4-5].
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