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Reflection for October 8, 2006

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The Secret Drawer

In one of Kenneth Grahame's episodes in The Golden Age the boy-narrator tells of his being introduced by his uncle to an attic in his aunt's house. Among the things stored there was an old writing desk. "H'm! Sheraton!" remarked his uncle, referring to the desk's 18th century make. He then let down the flap to reveal the desk's many pigeon-holes and drawers. "Fine bit of inlay," he said. "Good work, all of it. I know the sort. There's a secret drawer in there somewhere." The uncle then left the room, but the boy's whole being was set to "vibrating to those magic syllables - a secret drawer." They conjured up images of a sliding panel, bullion, ingots, Spanish dollars, hidden treasure. The boy thought of all the things he might do with such treasure: buy a pipe for the local shepherd, pay back Edward the four pence he owed him, buy young Harold a toy battleship now lying in dry-dock in the toy shop window. And then there was that boy in the village who had a young squirrel he was willing to sell for one shilling. The boy had "wants enough to exhaust any possible find of bullion, even if it amounted to half a sovereign."

In quest of this treasure the boy later returned to the room alone and approached the desk. He let down the flap and with expectant fingers "explored the empty pigeon-holes and sounded the depths of the smooth-sliding drawers." He let his fingers probe every surface in search of some knob or spring that might release the secret drawer. But all in vain. Unyielding, the old desk stood, stoutly guarding its secret. He grew discouraged and paused to lament his bad luck. This wasn't the first time Uncle Thomas had proved shallow, uninformed, a guide into blind alleys. But try again he must and hardly had he put his hand "once more to the obdurate wood, when with a sort of small sigh, almost a sob of relief, the secret drawer sprang open."

Excited he carried the drawer to the light by the window. But his excitement gave way to disappointment for the drawer contained no ingots or silver but only two tarnished gilt buttons, a crayoned picture, some foreign copper coins, a list of birds' eggs and where they had been found, and one ferret's muzzle. Nothing of any worth at all! And yet as the boy viewed the drawer's contents a "warmth crept back into his heart," for he knew them to be the hoard of some long forgotten boy like himself - "treasures he had stowed away one by one and had cherished secretly awhile: and then - what? Well, (thought the boy,) one would never know why these priceless possessions still lay unclaimed; but across the void stretch of years I seemed to touch hands a moment with my little comrade of seasons long since dead."

Don't we all have a secret drawer somewhere that contains things worthless to everyone but ourselves? In my own house we have a secret closet full of toys and bedtime story books and a silent guitar and even a guitar pick that are worth more to me than all the tea in China. And if we no longer have some literal secret drawer somewhere, don't we all have one deep within our psyches, filled with personally joyful and tragic memories, hurts and hopes and perhaps no little remorse? Don't we all have an inner sanctum no one else knows about or even cares about? And isn't this what our tradition is ultimately about, namely that we all become sensitive to that inner sanctum within each of us that makes each of us a "person" and not a statistic? And the sooner we become sensitive to that inner sanctum in others, the sooner we shall begin to see each other as kindred souls and treat each other with reverence and concern, as did the boy in our story who concludes:
"I restored the drawer, with its contents, to the trusty bureau, and heard the spring click with a certain satisfaction. Some other boy, perhaps, would some day release that spring again. I trusted he would be equally appreciative."

-- Geoff Wood