As kids we used to think it was so funny to hear my grandma answer the phone. She would be chatting away in a normal voice, which for her (and her 8 sisters) was rapid fire and kind of loud. The phone would ring, she would cross the kitchen, pick up the receiver and say "hellO-o?", her voice suddenly sweet and soft and singsong, managing to draw it out into three syllables. The stark contrast cracked us up every time...somehow the trek across the kitchen transformed her from the Grandma we knew to a caricature of over-the-top sunniness. Even better if the phone rang when she was upset or scolding us. ("You kids stop running through here! We have enough people in the kitchen already. Everyone out! " {phone ring, delicate clearing of throat} "HellO-o?")
I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got. But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instance. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy! Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty . . . that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it, that is all . . . And so I greet you, with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away. ~Fra Giovanni, "Letter to a friend"
