Just as you cannot stop air coming into your breast, you cannot stop (evil) thoughts coming into your mind. Your part is to resist them.
– Water from a Deep Well p.75 –
An old master asked him, “Do you want me to ask the Lord to release you from your trouble,” to which the young man replied, “Abba, I see that although it is a painful struggle, I am profiting from having to carry the burden.” Then he added, “But ask God in your prayers, that he will give me long-suffering, to enable me to endure.” The master was humbled by his apprentice’s wisdom and courage. “Now I know that you are far advanced, my son, and beyond me.”
– Water from a Deep Well p.75 –
The desert is barren, stark and lonely, thus symbolizing a life that is stripped of distractions, possessions and pleasures. It is a place of extremes-frigid cold at night, unbearable heat during the day, endless sand and rock, dangerous animals, utter emptiness. There are no provisions to meet physical needs, no conveniences to make life run more smoothly, not friendships to dull the edge of loneliness, no settlements to welcome hungry, thirsty travelers. People who face catastrophic difficulties usually use terms like desert or wilderness to describe their experience. The desert implies isolation, loneliness, temptation and combat- “a barren place, a secret place, a place that humans can make nothing of themselves, where only God can do anything.” It is the domain of the devil, useful for his evil purposes; but in an ironic way it is equally the landscape of God, which God uses to make us mature disciples. “Here man takes responsibility for fostering his won inner life and his ability to hear that Word of God when it is spoken. The solitary faces the full mystery of this inner life, in the presence of the invisible God.”
– Water from a Deep Well p.82 –
Evagrius did not define these sins(gluttony, impurity, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, pride) exclusively in terms of behaviors; he identified them as motives or inclinations too. In essence he described the problem of the darkness within, the tendency of all human beings, regardless of background and personality, to be egoistic. “It is not in our power,” he wrote, “to determine whether we are disturbed by these thoughts, but is is up to us to decide if they are to linger within us or not and whether or not they are to stir up our passions.”
– Water from a Deep Well p.84 –
In one of many humorous stories found in the Sayings, a young man approached Abba Silvanus on Mount Sinai to express concern about brothers who were wasting time doing something as undignified, unnecessary and unspiritual as common labor. The young man quoted several Scriptures to prove that true disciples should pray, not waste time doing ordinary chores, for “Mary has chosen the better part”(Luke 10:42). Abba Silvanus communed an assistant, saying to him, “Put this brother in a cell where there is nothing.” The day passed without incident. But by late afternoon the young disciple was hungry, and he wondered why no one had brought him anything to eat. So he found Abba Silvanus and asked if the brothers had eaten yet. “Yes, they have eaten already,” replied Silvanus. “Why did you not call me?” Silvanus replied, “You are a spiritual person and do not need food. We are earthly, and since we want to eat, we work with our hands.” Then, to drive the point home, he quoted (perhaps playfully) the very text the young brother had used to prove his superiority. “But you have chosen the good part, reading all day, and not wanting to take earthly food.” The apprentice was pierced to the heart, bowed before Silvanus and repented. Silvanus commented, “I think Mary always needs Martha, and by Martha’s help Mary is praised.”
– Water from a Deep Well p.89 –
These are from the book, Water from a Deep Well, written by Gerald L. Sittser in 2007.
