Jesus couldn’t go anywhere without being harassed by the Pharisees, pressed by the sick and hounded by enquiring minds.
So He told His disciples they needed to go into the desert to get away.
And ever since then, people have gone into the desert,
Hoping to “get away” from it all.
They become known as the Desert Fathers.
And they have many stories of their experiences of which I would like to share one with you.
Once there was a monk who was living in the monastery with all the other monks and he thought to himself,
“If only I can get away from all these crazy monks I would not be so angry and my problems would disappear!”
So he left the monastery to live by himself.
One day he took his water jar and went down to the river and filled it up.
When he came back to his room,
He put it down and it fell over, Spilling out all of the water.
So second time , mumbling under his breath he went back down to the river and fill it up all over over again.
When he came back to his room
He put in on the ground and there was a pebble underneath causing it to fall over again.
Spilling out all of the water.
Angry that he had to go to the river again he picked it up the water jar and made the long trek a third time.
When he came back to his room,
This time he put the water jar on the window sill,
And a bird came and knocked it over.
Well by this time, the monk was so angry
That he picked up the water jar in a rage,
And threw it against the wall
And it shattered into pieces.
As he looked at the shattered pieces on the ground,
He realized that his anger
Did not come from the other monks around him,
But from within himself,
So he moved back to the monastery
And lived with all of the other crazy monks,
Realizing he was really no different from them.
How many times do we wish we could “get away?”
Especially from all the crazy people around us.
How much better our life would be.
Only to find out what we do not like
And what is really bothering us,
Is like that monk,
Inside of us all along.
So rather than blame others for our problems
Maybe we should realize we are not really that different from each other,
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