prayer so difficult today.

desolate and painful:

too much thrashing about perhaps?

certainly far too much drifting into daydream, but this is a perennial problem.

remember that things are not always what they may seem at the time.

about that chest with seven locks:

the morose gardener placed the chest in the boy's room but why?

surely because he himself needed the chest to be opened and he could not do it himself.

and yet when the chest was opened, terrible things happened;

or seemed to.

or perhaps it is simply the case that things change.

and many of them may seem terrible.

the main essential though is that the most important doors cannot be opened by ourselves.

we need others to open them.
and each door which is opened has become a stepping stone towards you.