The Right Book at the Right Time

Twelve years ago, at the age of forty-one, I was in a kind of life crisis. I had just come back
to my hometown and did not know how to go on. So I did …. nothing!

After a while, several people who knew me and perhaps wanted to help me, critisized me very severely for this inactivity! They were Christians like me and in their view, I had started to live an idle and godless life. I felt wrongly accused and reacted angrily as a result. I got frustrated and at last, sadly
thought: Why don't they understand my situation? Why don't they see that I need more time?
 
At that time, I sometimes went to the university to read a little bit in the big library. So one afternoon I had
just passed the entrance when I suddenly heard the laughing voice of a young woman: "To err is human!" Obviously she hadn`t said that to me, but I felt deeply touched by these words. A little bit irritated, I walked on to my favorite place in that library.

Suddenly, a funny thought came in my mind: Why not take first a walk through the library! I do not know why, but I gave in that thought and started to walk aimlessly and "blindly" through the corridors. At last I stopped in front of a book shelf and took a book out of it. I really had not expected much from it, but now I read with surprise its title, About the Error.

Immediately young woman`s voice at the entrance came back to my mind: To err is human!  What a coincidence! Well, coincidence is surely the wrong word. It looked more that way, that I had to find this book. And so I sat down and started reading the book.

When I closed that book two hours later I felt a big relief. Now, I was able to understand  and forgive my critics. They had been mistaken, but they had acted – humanly. And perhaps, who knows, was my own blindness much bigger than that of the others. This also would have been – very humanly!

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