Tuesday 26 April 2011

The Contemplative Life

Sometimes a member of the Community will have a certain kind of spiritual experience. I can always tell it by the radiance of their faces and the look in their eyes. And when it happens, they come to me and they tell me they've achieved a new kind of spiritual depth. They've realised the futility of piling up worldly wealth. And they tell me that they've given up their jobs, they've rejected vulgar mundane manual work, and they just want to sit at my feet and learn new spiritual truths.

And I always look them in their starry eyes, and I say to them, very gently, "You've got three minutes to run before I let the dogs out."

And do you know, some of them are on such a spiritual high, they spend the next three minutes wondering what deep meaning there might be to the concept of "the dogs" getting out. But they always run in the end.

"If a man will not work he will not eat", said St Paul. And I'm sure if he had had a couple available, he'd have put something about rotties in there as well.

1 comment :

  1. It's certainly easier to do nothing but contemplate your navel in comfort, if someone else is providing the comfort.

    ReplyDelete

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