Letter to Stephen

Letter to Stephan Patrick Braham Mandeville Jamaica 1978

My Brother Stephan,

I have just retreated from another day’s work to the warmth and seclusion of the Hermitage.
I am sitting here re-living those days we spent in Ocho Rios, I can recall vividly so many of those days when you were to me like a Guru.
You were to me like a clear mirror in which I gazed and saw myself heavily burdened with shackles and chains.
How can I forget the indefatigable assistance you gave me to unfetter many of those chains.

Now as I sit here in Waltham, reflecting on how the vicissitudes of life did lay its hands upon us and scatted us like grains of sand to walk upon different shores, I feel a fleeting touch of sadness passing through my heart.

Will we ever again sit under the stars and “space rap” about the omnipotence of Jehovah and the infinity of the universe.
Will we ever again sit before the throne of reason and unfold our dreams before the sun that our hearts and minds may extrapolate the quintessence of wisdom form them.

Will the lips of the ages ever again reveal to us those secrets of life we often contemplated in the silence of the night.
Those secrets which came to us like phantoms in the dark and disappeared with the coming of light, leaving our understanding still misty and nebulous.

I am of the opinion my brother that people like us are servants of life who are victims of a desire to rise above our baser nature and encompass the true nature of our beings.
There is a distinction, nay rather a gulf between us and those people who are content to spend their days pursuing their idle fancies.
Those people my brother find contentment through the medium of their weaker senses which cannot gaze beyond the evanescence of the contingent world.

It is often difficult for us to relate to them or they to us, the bible quotes Jesus as saying “As the wind bloweth where is listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof but cannot tell from whence it cometh or to whither is goeth, even so are they who are born of the spirit” naturally the world of Christendom will have a different interpretation of the meaning of those words, for me those words aptly describe people like us.

Alas my brother, shall we forever spend our days and nights roving the shores of life without finding a horizon where we can set our anchor and enjoy its beauty and azure skies.

I do not know my brother what the hand of life has written upon the face of your life, disconcerting are the things I have heard, my heart is anxious to hear your voice about this new development.
I pray that Jehovah will guide you upon whatever path you may tread.

All good wishes and a word of love from

Ken