Sunday July 9, 2017
Wise Foolishness
One of Grimm's stories is about a man who had three sons. The youngest was called Simpleton and was mocked and despised by everyone. When the father wanted wood from the forest he asked his eldest son, the brightest one, to go to get it. Before he went his mother gave him a sweet cake and a bottle of wine. In the forest he met a little gray haired old man who greeted him and asked him for something to eat. The eldest son said: "if I give you my food and drink I'll have little for myself. Go Away!" He left the little man standing and went on his way. But when he started to knock down a tree he cut himself and had to return home to have his arm looked after.
After this the second son went into the forest. His mother also gave him a cake and a bottle of wine. The little old man asked him for a little cake and a drink of wine but the second son said: "what I give you will be taken from myself. Go away." He left the little man standing there. But when he started to swing his axe against the tree he struck himself in the leg and he had to be carried home.
Then Simpleton asked if he could go to get the wood. His father laughed at him in scorn and said he was too stupid to do anything right. But Simpleton insisted and his mother gave him a stale cake and a bottle of sour beer. In the forest he met the little old man who told him that he was hungry and thirsty. Simpleton answered: "I have only a stale cake and sour beer; if that pleases you we will sit down and share it." And so they did. Afterwards the little man said: "since you have a good heart and are willing to divide what you have, I will bring you good fortune." And the tale ends with Simpleton inheriting a Kingdom.
There are two issues, separate but related, in today's Gospel reading. The first is that the Simpletons, the children, the unwise of this world sometimes seem to grasp the core of what life is all about better than the so-called wise and wealthy. Recently, I was celebrating Mass in a barrio and I divided the people up into small groups to discuss the Gospel which was about the man who was born blind. While the adults were discussing I sat down with the children to listen to what they thought. Cheryl, an eight year old, said, "when people hate one another they are blind because they see only the bad part in the other person. When people forgive they see the whole person and they see that the bad part is only a tiny part of the whole person." The adults had nothing so profound to report from their discussion!
The second issue is that of dealing with sufferings and burdens. Again the Simpletons seem to do better. The message of the Gospel, through the words and deeds and life of Jesus, is very clear. Suffering is a part of life. What makes us great is not the avoidance of suffering but how we cope with it. Jesus does not assure us that he will take away our sufferings - his own were not taken away - but he says that he will make our burdens light, but they will still be burdens! People of power, economically or even spiritually, are ever trying to avoid suffering, to be an exempt elite, and they are being frustrated on that account.
In many years of dealing with the dying, both in the Philippines and abroad, I have never met a poor person who had a great struggle with facing death. Denial and anger are much higher amongst those in the higher income bracket. Probably, if in the course of life a person has been "very successful" in amassing wealth and in overcoming all sorts of frustrations and obstacles in doing so, they are going to feel much more the total frustration of losing control of and losing the very possession of their own lives. The poor, on the other hand, have been used to not having and "letting go," so letting go of life itself is not difficult for them.
There are, of course, two kinds of poverty: forced poverty and voluntary poverty. Forced poverty is an evil and we must not romanticize it. It is the poverty of those who do not have enough to eat, lack proper clothing, who cannot buy medicine. Voluntary poverty on the other hand is something good. It is when someone decides to "let go" or "to give away." This person can let go of or give away physical possessions, or honors or the desire for power. When this happens there is an experience of freedom and joy.
Prayer should be helping us to let go, to be open to God, to God's will, to become voluntarily poor. Unfortunately we are often using prayer to try to get God to help us in our grasping and controlling and in our efforts to gain prestige. St. James tells us that our prayers are not answered because we are asking for the wrong things, we are only asking for the things that fulfill our selfish desires. In meditation we let go of all ideas and images, of all attachments and desires, and become free for true joy as our yoke becomes sweet and our burden becomes light. In meditation we follow the Gospel call to leave self behind. For twenty to thirty minutes twice a day we just try to say the mantra, the prayer word. Usually we find that we cannot do this simple task and, as we seem to be getting nowhere, we are inclined to give it up. For the worldly wise it seems to be a ridiculous waste of time. John Main advises anyone who starts meditation to give it about three months before making a decision to abandon it. These will be months of perseverance in a futile effort to do something that seems foolishly simple - repeating one word subvocally during the whole time of meditation. The general experience is that after a few months, while the simple practice of meditation is still frustrating and apparently idiotic, the rich effects found in one's life are enough to convince one from within that there is wisdom in this foolishness.
