The Bishop in Jaffna
In great distress the farmer knocked incessantly on the door to the abbot’s cell. “Abbott, Abbott, you must help me,” he cried. “I’m at the end of my rope, I cannot take it anymore, I am thinking of suicide.”
“What is the problem, my child?”, responded the abbot.
“Our one-room farmhouse is just bedlam, what with my wife, her mother living with us, and the four screaming children. I will do anything if you can just solve my problem”, continued the anguished man.
Calmly, and with the wisdom born of much study and prayer, the abbot answered, “Then go hence and buy a cow, a pig, and a rooster, and take them home to live with you, and come back in one week to see me.”
“Are you crazy?”, the farmer shot back.
“You said you would do anything . . . ,” the abbot serenely replied.
The farmer did as he was told. On his return a week later he was greeted at the door of his cell by the abbot, who asked, “How are you, my son?”
Furious, the farmer screamed at the abbot, “Horrible, just horrible! Your advice was no help at all. I did exactly as you said. The children are still screaming, my wife and her mother are still driving me nuts, and now there is the incredible noise and smell from all the animals as well.”
His placid countenance undisturbed, the abbot replied, “Do as I say then. Go home, take the cow, the pig, and the rooster, and sell them, and then return to me in a week.”
A week later the farmer returned, and again was greeted by the Abbot. “ How are you, my child?”
A huge grin creased the farmer face as he replied, “Everything is just great! Now everything is so much quieter, cleaner, calmer, more spacious....”
How often it is that we let our circumstances – or how we perceive them to be -- ruin our peace, and dictate our moods. If our plane departs on time, we are happy, but if it is delayed, we are in the dumps; if our favorite team wins the game, we are on cloud nine, but if it loses, we can’t get to sleep; if we have x dollars in the bank, we tell ourselves, then we will be secure, but if not, our future is uncertain. And on and on.
Maybe we need to put on some new glasses. What if we saw the world, and everything in it, as made by a loving Creator, who is really in it right now, and who is at this very moment calling to us from the other side of every event and circumstance?
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Paul's Letter to the Philippians 4:7)
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