We should maintain that if an interpretation of any word in any religion leads to disharmony and does not positively further the welfare of the many, then such an interpretation is to be regarded as wrong; that is, against the will of God, or as the working of Satan or Mara.

Buddhadasa Bikkhu, a Thai Buddhist Monk


Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Cripples All of Us

Pushing down hard with his fists on the table-top he heaved himself up to where he was standing.  For the first time we saw he wanted one leg.  It was gone from the knee joint down.  He was hopping sideways to reach for his stick in the corner when he lost his balance.  He would have fallen in a heap if Brendan hadn't leapt forward and caught him.

"I'm as crippled as the dark world,"  Gildas said.

"If it comes to that, which one of us isn't, my dear?" Brendan said.

Gildas with but one leg.  Brendan sure he'd misspent his whole life entirely.  Me that had left my wife to follow him and buried our only boy.  The truth of what Brendan said stopped all our mouths.  We was cripples all of us.  For a moment or two there was no sound but the bees.

"To lend each other a hand when we're falling," Brendan said.  "Perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end."

Frederick Buechner,
Listening to Your Life, p. 76