I’ve been dipping into my vault of past Inspirations a bit often lately. This week is no exception. The tale is one I initially posted in March of 2013. I haven’t lost my muse; it’s just been overshadowed by my caring for my beloved dog who tore her ACL several weeks ago and just underwent surgery this past week. We are now beginning her 6–8-week recovery and rehabilitation phase.
I am learning a lot about servanthood and suffering. I won’t lie, this 71-year-old body isn’t faring well lugging her out of her crate and outside to do her business. She is not used to being alone, let alone caged, so she cries often when we are not around her. I have her set up in my home office so I can be within her sight. I’ve even set up a bed next to her cage to sleep next to her. It’s not where I want to be, but it seems to soothe and calms her.
While I have not yet been spurred to craft an Inspiration from this experience, I am gathering much fodder for a future post.
With my body aching and the prospect of weeks more ahead, my wife and I were talking about how daunting our challenge are going to be over the coming weeks. “We must have Faith and trust in it,” she said, “Suffering leads to fulfillment if it isn’t self-directed. It’s when you suffer for others. Think of the Cross.”
With that backdrop, here is my re-post:
Faith provides us with an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and an assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly. Yet even our spiritual world can often seem mysterious. All of us at certain times find that understanding God and His ways can be challenging, or paraphrasing St. Augustine, to believe in what we do not see so that we can be rewarded by seeing what we believe, is both our struggle and our prize for having faith.
There is an old Jewish folktale that reminds us that having faith often entails willingly and enthusiastically walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. But in doing so, we ultimately discover the light of the world:
Once there were two young brothers who had spent all their lives in the city and had never even seen a field or a pasture. One day they decided to take a trip to the countryside. As they were walking along, they spied a farmer plowing and were puzzled as to what he was doing.
“What strange thing is he doing?” they asked themselves. “This fellow marches back and forth all morning long scarring the earth with long ditches. Why would anyone destroy such a pretty meadow like that?”
Later in the afternoon they passed the same place again and this time saw that the farmer was now sowing grains of wheat into the furrows.
“Now what is he doing?” they asked themselves. “He must be crazy. Now he’s taking perfectly good wheat and tossing it into those ditches he spent all morning digging!”
“The country is no place for me,” said one of the brothers. “The people here make no sense. I’m going home.” And he quickly left his brother and returned to the city.
But the second brother stayed in the country and a few weeks later saw a wonderful change taking place in the farmer’s field. Fresh green shoots began to cover the area with a lushness he had not imagined possible. He quickly wrote to his brother and urged him to return and see this miraculous transformation.
So, his brother returned from the city, and he too was amazed at the change. As they weeks passed, they saw the green earth turn into a golden field of wheat. And then they comprehended the reason for the farmer’s “strange” work.
As the wheat grew ripe, the farmer came with his scythe and began to cut it down. The brother who had returned from the city viewed this with disbelief. “What is this fool doing now?” he exclaimed. “All summer long he worked so hard to grow this beautiful wheat and now he’s destroying it with his own hands!” He really is crazy after all! I’ve had enough. I’m going back to the city for good now.”
His brother, however, had more patience. He stayed in the country and watched the farmer collect the wheat and take it to his granary. He watched as the farmer cleverly separated the chaff, and how meticulously he stored the rest. And he was filled with awe when he realized that by sowing one bag of seed, the farmer had grown and harvested a whole field of grain. Only then did he truly understand that the farmer had a reason for everything he did.
“And this is how it is with God’s works, too,” he thought, “We mortals see only the beginnings of His plan. We cannot understand the full purpose and end of His creation. So, we must have faith in His wisdom.”
When you get to the end of all light you know and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught to fly. – Edward Teller, nuclear and molecular physicist
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque