Westward Ho, Phoenix, Arizona, 1st February, 1933
Papa Darling,
I’ve just got your awfully nice letter. I do quite understand how you feel, because I should have felt it all myself a year ago. All I can say is that far from this being a wild missionary scheme personelled by idealistic wastrels who wouldn’t have been able to get honest employment anyhow, they are intelligent and capable men and women, who are working as hard as any politician, diplomat or serviceman to get peace in the world here and now. It’s true that we don’t get paid for doing it, but then so much more money for other people. We don’t starve, but we don’t badger people with appeals. Thank you very much, by the way, for refunding me the £20. It all arrived at the right moment and I hope you really can afford it.
You know, you aren’t really a materialist. You said to me once in the Black Forest that it was informal religion that really appealed to you. And I’m awfully like you, and see your point of view fearfully clearly, but after all I’ve seen of this, and the way God can really guide one, I see that it’s right to go ahead on faith. It took me six months to decide that it wasn’t nonsense, and it’s not a case of blindly following Frank in a sort of ecstasy of hero worship, but I’ve been bothered ever since I was quite small about the world always being swayed and governed by the alternating popularity of points of view.
I could hear Grandfather talk for hours about Free Trade – be convinced entirely by his arguments, and then men just as able would talk about Protection, and it all seemed sound too. Now it seems to me only logical to suppose that as in the laissez faire policy of Free Trade there is a natural law which, if left to operate, adjusts itself.
Well, I prefer to call that God. I mean it isn’t you or me who ordains that one country shall produce pineapples and another railway engines which can be exchanged one for the other. On the other hand it’s you and me who have to let that law or God work through us. God has no other agencies than human beings to carry out His plan, and that therefore He must have some means of communicating with his instruments.
Now, when the bulk of the individuals who compose this world, and the Governments of this world, are dishonest, immoral and heaven knows what, it is difficult for anything approaching a perfect plan to emerge through the minds or intelligences of those individuals.
I think the Archbishop of York said – the world is in the mess it’s in not because thousands of people are desperately wicked, but because thousands of people are like you and me. And that’s about it.
You may not think I’ve changed myself all that amount to make it justifiable for me to talk about making the statesmen of the world face up to their own sins, and the reason, I’m ashamed to say, was fear of being laughed at. I have changed an awful lot underneath, but I was so afraid of having it thrown in my face by all of you that I remained as much as possible like myself outside, so that no one would notice the difference.
This whole business of living at Kimble, for instance. Something was telling me at the back of my mind all the autumn that really I shouldn’t be able to make any settled plans abut Wolf Cubs or anything, and I simply sat on it because it seemed absurd, and I hadn’t the nerve to say that I felt God would have some other plan for me. So I let myself in for it and thereby let other people down. I’m awfully sorry and ashamed about it all now because I do see that you’re worried and bothered through my never having been really honest about the whole thing. When I came out here, I really was determined to come back in January, just to show that I wasn’t at God’s beck and call, and I was going to run back to Kimble with a sigh of relief, and settle down and talk about the Oxford Group, and what a splendid thing it was, and how I’d just been over to America with them, and hope I shouldn’t have to go again. I was one thing with them and another with you and I was so keen to do anything I could for God and world peace, so long as it didn’t inconvenience me in any way. In fact, I hastily took up journalism and things to show that religion hadn’t impaired my intelligence, and I may say that in the ordinary course of events I should love to dig up mummies or write books, and very likely, one day I may be able to, but that isn’t going to cure the world depression, or make me a more honest person, at the moment.
Papa dear, this may be unpleasant for you, but I find it just as uncomfortable. Facing facts and oneself is always a bit of a jar, although it is probably no news to you that I’m not a pattern of integrity. And when God sees that I’m fit to be trusted at home without letting Him and you down, I’ve no doubt I shall return because if Christianity won’t work in one’s home it won’t work anywhere. Believe me, it’s a lot easier to talk about absolutely honesty to the Yanks than to you. So that’s still to come, and I do love you all, and I’m quite sane.
Your very loving,
Maria
English