C
contemplative
Guest
Simon Tugwell O.P. writes in his book Prayer: Living with God…
St. Ambrose gave his congregation some very good advice. Using the old Christian symbol, he compared them in this stormy world to fish swimming in the sea. And to them too he said: “Be a fish” We must learn how not to be swamped by the situations that we find ourselves in. We must learn how to get through them with a minimum of damage, and a maximum of profit.
One aspect of this is simply learning to get through situations, and not always to want to take them with us. There is a story told of two monks in Japan, “traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection. ‘Come on, girl,’ said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud. Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. ‘We monks don’t go near females,’ he told Tanzan, ‘especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?’ ‘I left the girl there,’ said Tanzan ‘Are you still carrying her?”
We must learn to pass through situations like a fish, rather than carrying them all with us like a snail. We should certainly emerge with a little bit more experience of life, but there is no need to carry more with us than we have to —each situation carries quite enough trouble with it by itself!
We must learn to be very simple and resigned to accepting life as it comes, seeking to build up an instinct for what God is trying to teach us day by day, trying to become more sensitive to the fluctuating state of our inner and outer resources, and not grumbling to find that we are poor.
Indeed, “Blessed are the poor” (Mt 5:3). And it is the poor who know how to pray…
……empty handed…….
Lent is a good time to relieve ourselves of excess baggage …to become empty handed enough to really pray and to hear God’s voice.
St. Ambrose gave his congregation some very good advice. Using the old Christian symbol, he compared them in this stormy world to fish swimming in the sea. And to them too he said: “Be a fish” We must learn how not to be swamped by the situations that we find ourselves in. We must learn how to get through them with a minimum of damage, and a maximum of profit.
One aspect of this is simply learning to get through situations, and not always to want to take them with us. There is a story told of two monks in Japan, “traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection. ‘Come on, girl,’ said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud. Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. ‘We monks don’t go near females,’ he told Tanzan, ‘especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?’ ‘I left the girl there,’ said Tanzan ‘Are you still carrying her?”
We must learn to pass through situations like a fish, rather than carrying them all with us like a snail. We should certainly emerge with a little bit more experience of life, but there is no need to carry more with us than we have to —each situation carries quite enough trouble with it by itself!
We must learn to be very simple and resigned to accepting life as it comes, seeking to build up an instinct for what God is trying to teach us day by day, trying to become more sensitive to the fluctuating state of our inner and outer resources, and not grumbling to find that we are poor.
Indeed, “Blessed are the poor” (Mt 5:3). And it is the poor who know how to pray…
……empty handed…….
Lent is a good time to relieve ourselves of excess baggage …to become empty handed enough to really pray and to hear God’s voice.
