Another Desert Story
"A brother fell when he found that he could no longer hide his anger; it was something he wrestled with alone. His failure saddened him deeply. He'd never realised the depth and breadth of the problem, or the way in which it worked itself into every area of his life. In his distress he stopped practicing his monastic rule. He really longed to take it up again, but his sadness and sense of failure prevented him. He would say to himself, 'When will I ever able to be holy, a brother who loves himself, God and neighbour, to be truly Jesus-like?'He went to see one of the old men, and told him all about himself. And when the old man learned of his distress, he said: 'There was man who had a plot of land; but it got neglected and turned into waste ground, full of weeds and brambles. So he said to his son, "Go and weed the ground.' The son went off to weed it, saw all the brambles and despaired. He said to himself, 'How long will it take before I have uprooted and reclaimed all that?' So he lay down and went to sleep for several days. His father came to see how he was getting on and found he had done nothing at all. 'Why have you done nothing?' he said. The son replied, 'Father, when I started to look at this and saw how many weeds and brambles there were, I was so depressed that I could do nothing but lie down on the ground.' His father said, Child, just go over the surface of the plot every day and you will make some progress.' So he did, and before long the whole plot was weeded. The same is true for you, brother: work just a little bit without getting discouraged, and God by his grace will re-establish you..."
having single-handedly cleared no fewer than 4 gardens of Sleeping Beauty levels of neglect in 4 tied houses over the past 8 years, I have to wonder whether the old man had actually ever done any gardening...
Posted by: maggi | Friday, 14 May 2004 at 06:51 PM
... and today, with help from my Father and Stepmother (not the wicked kind), I planted the newly cleared, fourth garden. Hope the slugs leave it alone for a bit.
Meantime, I thought I had 'track-backed' to your entry, but it seems not. Oh dear. Technoclutz strikes again...
Posted by: maggi | Sunday, 16 May 2004 at 08:16 AM