Abba John told Abba Pemwah in the Egyptian desert, "Take that dry and lifeless stick and plant it in the sand three miles away from our monastery; water it every day". While this required long hours of lugging buckets, Pemwah kept at it. And wondrously, after three years the stick flowered and Abba John called all the brothers together declaring, "Come and see the fruit of obedience."
Religious people often like the word obedience because it makes for good order. But obedience has to mean more than just: Do what I tell you to do; go where I tell you to go. That kind of obedience can be destructive and a source of evil. "Keep quiet," "Hide this," "Don't report that." That's gotten the Church into big trouble even in our own time. Watch The Nun's Story and see Sister Luke struggling with that kind of obedience. Thomas Merton wondered aloud how many good vocations to the monastic life were lost because of what we call blind obedience.
Religious people often like the word obedience because it makes for good order. But obedience has to mean more than just: Do what I tell you to do; go where I tell you to go. That kind of obedience can be destructive and a source of evil. "Keep quiet," "Hide this," "Don't report that." That's gotten the Church into big trouble even in our own time. Watch The Nun's Story and see Sister Luke struggling with that kind of obedience. Thomas Merton wondered aloud how many good vocations to the monastic life were lost because of what we call blind obedience.
I would suggest that the Abba Pemwah story is more about mercy than obedience. Maybe Abba John knew that Abba Pemwah needed to learn a new depth of mercy - opening a way for him to learn kindness for all of God's creatures and situations, even those that others would deem hopeless and useless. So he instructed him to undertake the revival of the lifeless stick.
Of course ultimately the story isn't about a dry tree branch. It might rather suggest growing a new attitude towards the adult who can't read, the prisoner back in jail again, the young person with the poor work ethic, the addict who has relapsed, the people we dismiss for a host of reasons, of whom we say, Don't expect much of anything from them.
A husband on Dr. Phil acknowledged in great humility, that he's not tended to his wife for a very long time, asking how to re-discover her rightly; how to become her friend again. That marriage had become a kind of dried and lifeless stick.That's what the Abba Pemwah story is really about - people and relationships. Maybe ourselves! Any close-to-home ideas or insights?
A husband on Dr. Phil acknowledged in great humility, that he's not tended to his wife for a very long time, asking how to re-discover her rightly; how to become her friend again. That marriage had become a kind of dried and lifeless stick.That's what the Abba Pemwah story is really about - people and relationships. Maybe ourselves! Any close-to-home ideas or insights?
