LETTERS FROM HOME: EVERYDAY ACTS OF LOVE AND THE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS

Nov. 4, 1999 Dear Ken, In marriage it's easy to assume your partner knows how you feel. Closing the gap between how you feel and how you act is one of the greatest gifts two people can exchange. The narrower the gap, the more every day becomes an act of love. I don't mean grand gestures like giving diamonds or even a mid-winter weekend at a Florida golf school, though those certainly would be well received. The real acts of love mean emptying the dishwasher so she doesn't have to, checking the oil in the car engine because she doesn't, and reading her insomnia to sleep, very small things that lie in helpfulness, protectiveness and nurturing of the other's soul.

How mundane and lacking in poetry. And yet, these are the acts that best express love, respect and cherishedness. It has taken someone who was single much of his adult life some while to understand this difference. There have been clues. An old girlfriend was not quite gentle with my heart but touched me one day through the simple act of ironing me a shirt though she was not an ironing kind of girl. We men are trained not to show we care and, let it be said, to be selfish, to expect catering. I have been guilty. These habits are barriers to creating the kind of union with a woman all men in the reaches of our hearts want and are capable of.

Think of the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi: Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

These everyday acts are the vehicle of Saint Francis' peace. Pardoning injuries, giving hope to despair and fining joy in sadness begins at home. It is in performing these everyday acts that saintliness is possible.

How far from living that prayer I am. I fall short in every way, in fact turn it upside down. Sometimes darkness is all there is to see, and to be understood -- rather than to be understanding -- is my Holy Grail.

I was working late the night before Halloween, having a bad night, when DC called wondering when I would be getting home. Grumbling about this and that, I said I didn't know for sure. "Well, call before you come," she said. "We have a gathering." Even a party didn't sound appealing. I drove the few dark blocks home wondering who and what awaited. With DC it could be a margarita party or a convocation of church elders. Nearing the driveway, the gathering on our front porch steps came into view: twenty-two jack-o'-lanterns, some with smiling faces, some with frowns, blazing a welcome home.

Love, Sam