The letter arrived on a night when the wind clawed at the shutters, and the candlelight trembled. Its parchment was yellowed, its ink uneven, as though it had been written in haste or in a hand not wholly steady.

“You are telling me nothing new,” the letter began, “for the mind always wanders. The will must act as mistress of all powers, dragging the soul back to its end in God.”

I read these lines aloud, though no one else was in the room. The sound echoed strangely, as if the walls themselves listened.

The words spoke of a mind left untrained, of unhealthy habits forming, of distractions that dragged one “in spite of oneself” toward earthly things. And as I read, I thought I heard shuffling in the corners of the room, as though something invisible had been stirred.

The writer—Brother Lawrence—urged humility, the admission of stumbles, the stilling of words in prayer. He counseled me to return gently, to use the will to bring the mind back. Yet as my eyes traveled down the page, the candle flame leaned hard to one side, and I felt the presence of something leaning with it.

An easy way, he wrote, was to keep the mind close to God throughout the day, during meals, conversations, even idle hours. “Don’t leave Him alone,” the letter warned. “Would you leave a guest unattended? Then why abandon God?”

The words struck deeper than they should have. For behind me, I could hear breathing. Soft, patient, deliberate.

I dared not turn, but the letter urged me still: Think of God often. Think of Him night and day. Do not leave Him alone.

And then, faintly, almost tenderly, the unseen voice echoed the words of the letter aloud, finishing the sentence I had not yet read.

The End