First Posted: 4/18/2014
It’s an oft-told story with several versions (some, naturally, on the internet) and there’s no better time to tell it than Easter Sunday. The author is unknown.
The old monks at this secluded monastery, the story goes, while all wonderful, devoted men, feared they were losing their way. Their faith, they believed, was still strong but something was missing. They seemed to have lost their verve, their sparkle, if you will, and they did not know how to get it back. Life had become drudgery.
In the woods near a field where the monks took their daily stroll, lived a rabbi in seclusion. At last, one monk decided he would seek out this rabbi and ask for help. Maybe the rabbi had an answer.
He did not, the rabbi told the monk, except for this: “The Messiah,” he said, “is one of you.”
The monk relayed this message to his brothers. “The Messiah is one of us?” each began to ask himself. “Who then could it be? Brother John? Brother Aloysius? Brother Thomas? My goodness, certainly not I?”
And with that, everything changed. The monks began to treat each other with all the reverence deserving of the Messiah. And, perish the thought, if indeed each, himself, might be the Messiah, they treated everyone with the love such an honor required.
Word of the extraordinary sense of calm and beauty that emanated from the monastery began to spread and people, eventually by the hundreds, came to visit. All wanted to experience the pure love that came to define the order. The monks were never happier. And they never again lost their way.
This story, which I first heard more than 20 years ago, came to mind last week as I perused old issues of the Dispatch seeking inspiration for an Easter column. I came across something I wrote in 2002.
We were made aware in March of that year of a local man’s dying wish and an organization attempting to grant it.
The Dream Foundation (similar to Make A Wish) contacted us to ask for help. The wish of a man from our area was made known to them by his mother-in-law. He was a wonderful man, good husband, devoted father, who had just been told he had four months to live. He and his wife of 17 years had married quite young and never had a honeymoon. He had always told her someday he was going to take her to Las Vegas. That someday had never come.
With time of the essence, the Dream Foundation swung into action. They asked us, the local paper, to run an article seeking an “angel” (or several) who might be willing to donate frequent flyer miles toward the trip. They said they needed about 50,000.
I recall having my doubts, not that there weren’t good people willing to donate the miles, but that frequent flyer miles are not always easy to transfer and buying tickets with them is no mean feat either. “Know what I’m praying for?” I said to my wife. “That someone just comes forward and buys the tickets for them.”
Well, someone did. And then some.
I was hardly surprised, I admit, when I heard the voice on the phone. I had, and have since, been witness to incredible acts of kindness and generosity from this Greater Pittston person who has been my friend for close to 40 years. He told me he was having trouble getting through on the phone number we published in the paper, so I called the Dream Foundation myself with a promise to get back to him. When I did, it was not with good news. There were more problems than just plane tickets. Getting a room reservation in Las Vegas had also hit a snag.
I told this to my friend on a Monday afternoon. He called me Tuesday morning with a very simple statement. “It’s done,” he said.
When this guy says “done” I know what he means and I began to laugh and got a lump in my throat at the same time. The plane tickets were already purchased. The hotel reservations were made. And he was on his way to drop off an envelope of cash for spending money. “Can’t go to Vegas without money in your pocket,” he said.
“Will you let me … ?” I began to ask before he cut me off.
“Absolutely not!” he said, knowing I wanted to put his name in the paper.
“This is between you and me and God,” he said, before adding, “and my wife.”
So I never revealed his name and am not about to now.
But, borrowing from the rabbi in the story above, I will say this man is one of you.
I encourage you to, as did the monks, take that news to heart. And then, act accordingly.
