I have probably bored my readers to death with tales and mentions of cutting down trees and stacking firewood - so either ignore the following or endure my foolishness.

The following are lessons I have learned as I have stacked firewood; and when I say stacking firewood - I mean from dropping the tree to covering the finished product (this past weekend included two “marathon” sessions after a week of two or three half-marathon sessions of cleaning up a 120 or so year old white oak that I downed early this year). By the way the lessons are not going to be explicitly applied - glean whatever you glean - this is all about “reader response.”

1. a splitter will reveal any weak points in a log… pressure has a way of pointing out flaws

2. when falling a tree foresight and forward thinking are not optional

3. stacking firewood is not a solo sport

4. good firewood that makes for efficient fuel is often not easy to split

5. if at all possible… read the grain and go with it

6. every piece of wood has a story to tell… a tale of age and location; a tale of hardship and visitors - it is worth taking the time every once in a while to stop and listen

7. from tree standing to firewood stacked - it takes a lot of individual handling!! (more than I care to actually count - sometimes mystery or ignorance really is best)

8. from my wife - don’t short circuit all the handling by carrying multiple pieces - the carrying of each individual log multiple times from place to place helps remove the foreign matter

9. finding a logs niche in the pile is both serendipity and art

any other wood stackers out there? any other lessons learned?

Wisdom from the ascetics in the desert from Thomas Merton’s The Wisdom of the Desert.

Some powerful truth(s) about our view of others from hermits!

“One of the elders said: A monk ought not to inquire how this one acts, or how that one lives. Questions like this take us away from prayer and draw us on to backbiting and chatter. There is nothing better than to keep silent.” (p. 74)

“Abbot Moses said: A man ought to be like a dead man with his companion, for to die to one’s friend is to cease to judge him in anything.” (p. 75)

“Once two brethren came to a certain elder whose custom it was not to eat every day. But when he saw the brethren he invited them with joy to dine with him, saying: Fasting has its reward, but he who eats out of charity fulfills two commandments, for he sets aside his own will and he refreshes his hungry brethren.” (p. 77)

Finally.

Our weekly wisdom brings us to one of our Desert Mothers (Syncletica - one of the few women who has contributions in “The Sayings of the Fathers”). She provides us with some helpful wisdom that resonates with me in the cold days of November; and challenges me when I complain, “why is this so hard.”

“Abess Syncletica of Holy Memory said: ‘There is labour and great struggle for the impious who are converted to God, but after that comes inexpressible joy. A man (sic) who wants to light a fire first is plagued by smoke, and the smoke drives him to tears, yet finally he gets the fire that he wants. So also it is written: Our God is a consuming fire. Hence we ought to light the divine fire in ourselves with labour and with tears.’” (Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert p. 55)

Today’s wisdom comes from Thomas Merton’s The Wisdom of the Desert. Two thoughts that seem to be rightly connected as they follow one another in Merton’s anthology.

Abbot Ammonas said that he had spent fourteen years in Scete praying to God day and night to be delivered from anger. (pg. 33)

Abbot Pastor said: The virtue of a monk is made manifest by temptations. (pg. 34)

Temptations by Michael D. O’Brien

Wisdom today is from The Wisdom of the Desert compiled and paraphrased by Thomas Merton.

An Elder was asked: What does it mean, this word we read in the Bible, that the way is straight and narrow? And the elder replied: This is the straight and narrow way: that a man should do violence to his judgements and cut off, for the love of God, the desires of his own will. This is what was written of the Apostles: Behold we have left all things and have followed Thee. (Page 45)

“…not my will but Thine be done.”

“not mine, Thine.”

peace.

I have been spending a bit more time reading in Benedict’s Rule of late - so rather than pull out a random saying from the Desert Father or Mothers; today we will hear some Benedictine Wisdom. Benedict wrote just a short treatise on his “way of life” that determined “who a person could become.” Benedict’s short, scripture saturated book, The Rule is where we turn today.

In Chapter 7 St. Benedict uses the image of a ladder as a symbol of unity and integration - or “harmony.”

Here it unites earth and heaven, standing firmly on the ground (community) and offering access to God. The two sides of this ladder are the body and the soul. [The ladder] is pulling body and soul together, recognizing the place of both, using the two together, that makes the ascent to God possible.

For a quite absurd image - picture a ladder that is lopsided with the rungs trying to pull together the two sides of a ladder that are out of harmony and not running parallel! This is the danger of neglecting our Body for the sake of the Soul or vice versa (preference to mind over emotions or head over heart).

Benedict calls us to harmony in our way of life. “That are minds are in harmony with our voices.” (or our hearts, or our hands, or our feet, or our ears, etc.). May our lives produce a beautiful harmonic music to the Glory of God.

O Father, may we find this kind of integration where the message of Your Son the Christ, that we understand with our mind, seep into our everyday way of life: in our speech, relationships, work, play, attitudes, and values.

Amen.

Today’s weekly wisdom is again culled from Thomas Merton’s great little book, The Wisdom of the Desert. It is a delight to peruse and too often hits squarely between the eyes. The thing that again and again touches me is that the wisdom of these ascetics (people living difficult lives; living in poverty; and often alone for great stretches by choice) is more often than not the offer of grace. Oh, how we need to learn to be gracious. Oh, how I need to learn to be gracious - I am often willing to look at my life through the eyes of grace; but when it comes to the other the lenses of judgement often skews my view.

“An elder was asked by a certain soldier if God would forgive a sinner. And he said to him: Tell me, beloved, if your cloak is torn, will you throw it away? The soldier replied and said: No. I will mend it and put it back on. The elder said to him: If you take care of your cloak, will God not be merciful to His own image?” [Merton p. 76]

And one more today:

“One of the brethren had sinned, and the priest told him to leave the community. So then Abbot Bessarion got up and walked out with him, saying: I too am a sinner!” [Merton p. 40]

Ahhh - Stability. The virtue of persevering - in this instance persevering in relation to place. This is a much needed piece of wisdom that I need to hear and one for our overly mobile culture. Lord, help me, as Benedict admonishes, to listen (and there is that metaphor of trees - I am seeing a theme in my life!).

“An elder said: Just as a tree cannot bear fruit if it is often transplanted, so neither can a monk bear fruit if he frequently changes his abode.”

(quoted from Thomas Merton’s, The Wisdom of the Desert p. 34)

In light of all my cutting of trees lately this bit of wisdom seemed appropos…

“Ammon questioned Poemen on the subject of the impure thoughts within the heart, and on the subject of vain desire.

Poemen said, ‘Can the axe do any harm unless the woodman is using it? Do not reach out your hands to use those things, and they will do you no harm.’”

Today we turn to the topic and critical discipline of stillness and the imperative that without stillness of the body - we can never achieve inner stillness. The pages of The Philokalia again are the source of our wisdom.

“He [or she] who wants to cross the spiritual sea is long-suffering, humble, vigilant, and self-controlled. If one impetuously embarks on it without these four virtues, he agitates his heart, but cannot cross. Stillness helps us by making evil inoperative. If it also takes to itself these four virtues in prayer, it is the most direct support in attaining dispassion. The intellect cannot be still unless the body is still also; and the wall between them cannot be demolished without stillness and prayer.” [St. Mark the Ascetic I, On Those Who Think They Are Made Righteous By Works, Sec. 29-31. As quoted in Selections From the Philokalia p. 165]