Dear members of the Mount Lilydale Mercy College community
I think I have told you before that one of my favourite books is Waiting for the Mountain to Move: Reflections on Work and Life by Charles Handy. I first came across the book, originally published in 1992, when a friend lent me a copy. On returning it, I told my wife how much I enjoyed it and she presented me a copy as a gift. As is my habit with books I like, I told someone about it, lent it to them and I have not seen it since. This is a lesson I really must learn.
Last week, a librarian at MLMC supplied me with a copy of the book and I am thrilled. I have started to re-read it. Handy has a way of presenting his experience in the public service, business world and education in very provocative short anecdotes that compel the reader to think. Remembering that it was written before 1992, before the proliferation of personal computers and mobile phones, Handy presents old issues in a very different light.
So why the title? In the opening story Handy discusses the times which he describes as his blackest. The times when he has no control over what is happening. Things may or may not happen. He is powerless to intercede to create change.
Does this sound familiar?
Handy refers to Kierkegaard’s story of the traveller who was walking in the countryside and on seeking a village, he found the road to be blocked by a mountain. So he sat and waited for the mountain to move. Years later he was still sitting there and eventually he died. He is long remembered in the village by a proverb “the man who waited for the mountain to move”.
So what is the point?
God does not move mountains or cause stock markets to crash or create viruses to kill us. God helps us climb mountains and to find vaccines for viruses. Now is not the time to be looking outside at the world and seeking God. Now is the time to look within and find in ourselves the beauties that we never knew were there.
This Sunday is Mother’s Day. I understand that family dinners at restaurants and pubs will not be possible, but a family dinner at home or a picnic or a barbecue in the back yard is certainly possible. I understand that grown children cannot visit or you cannot visit grandparents, but you can join with them in spirit over the phone, skype, zoom, Google Meet or whatever means. You might not be able to shop to buy that perfect gift, but the gift of appreciation and demonstrated love is always possible.
A smile, a hug, a kiss within families and within the social distancing rules is always possible.
Don’t wait for the mountain to move. Climb it and make that special mother, grandmother and female caregiver understand your gratitude for all that they do each and every day.
God bless
Philip A Morison
Principal
A Mother’s Garden
My Mother kept a garden,
A garden of the heart.
She planted all the good things
That gave my life its start.
She turned me to the sunshine
And encouraged me to dream.
Fostering and nurturing
The seeds of self-esteem.
And when the winds and rain came,
She protected me enough.
But not too much because she knew
I’d need to stand up strong and tough.
Her constant good example
Always taught me right from wrong.
Markers for my pathway
That will last a lifetime long.
I am my Mother’s garden.
I am her legacy.
And I hope today she feels the love
Author unknown (https://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/holidays/mothers-day)
