Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Leo Sevensky, OHC
Last Sunday, Brother Ephrem spoke to us about the hero’s journey, that archetypal tale which becomes a pattern for human life. He used this to illustrate the story of Jacob as well as that of Odysseus, a story of leaving home, having adventures, facing challenges, and making one’s way back, chastened and—let’s hope--a little more mature and wiser. And we understand that this is not peculiar to Jacob or Odysseus but touches each of us. This hero myth or story is one of many models or genres that speak more generally to our human condition. There is, for example, the story of the descent into the underworld or the search for a hidden treasure or the story of a flood such as we find in the Gilgamesh Epic or that of Noah and the ark, a story of universal destruction and restoration.
Today’s Scripture readings present us with yet more stories or symbolic lessons, messages of faith and pathways to wisdom. There are five—count them—parables of the Kingdom in today’s brief Gospel passage. And one folk tale…that of Solomon and his dream. In any event, it strikes me as a folk tale.
Folk tales or, in their more condensed form, proverbs seem designed not to offer us the shape of the whole pattern of our lives but rather focus on one or two practical pieces of advice for successful living. And every culture has them, shared with children, often quite humorous, and sometimes even bawdy. We all know them and have been exposed to them in collections such as Grimm’s fairy tales. They are a primary tool of socialization in any society or culture.
One folktale that appears in many shapes is the tale of The Three Wishes. And like any good folk tale it can be endlessly elaborated on though it is easily summarized. In its classic form—and with a nod to Wikipedia—it tells the story of a poor woodcutter and his wife who are struggling to make ends meet. One day the woodcutter finds the perfect tree to harvest, and just as he begins to do it a fairy or wood nymph appears and begs him not to chop down her home. In returns, she promises to grant him three wishes and he agrees. The woodcutter returns home, and as he talks with his wife about what happened, he realizes he's very hungry and without thinking he wishes for a sausage to eat. And suddenly a hot sausage appears at the table. His wife, furious that he's wasted a wish, speaks to him in anger. And he responds in kind: “I wish this sausage was stuffed up your nose.” And as if by magic, there it is. The couple now need to decide what to do with their one remaining wish. They could be rich, they could be powerful, they could be fruitful, but alas, the sausage would still be hanging from the wife's nose. So, they decide to use their third and final wish to remove the sausage from her face.
What's the moral of the story? What do we learn from it? Maybe we learn to take our time, to not be hasty, to not act out of unexamined desires or uncontrolled emotions. Maybe we learn that greed is not the way to go forward in life. Or maybe we learn that who we are or what we have right now is enough.
It seems to me that the story of Solomon that we hear in our first reading has something of the character of a folktale with its own moral. God appears to Solomon in a dream and says, “Ask what I should give you.” And though he is given one, not three, wishes he is faced with the difficult question of what he should ask for, what he desires. Solomon, of course, the paradigm of the wise ruler, does not ask for long life or riches or the life of his enemies but rather for, and I quote, “understanding to discern what is right.” But my hunch is that the other things surely went through his mind. Why not ask for long life? Why not ask for riches? Why not ask for the life of his enemies? But what Solomon does request is in fact quite bigger. In effect, he is asking for the skill to live a life which is at once meaningful and productive. And as we hear from the reading, God grants him the other things which he set aside for the sake of this larger purpose, namely that of being a wise ruler for his people. Indeed, God promises that he shall be the wisest of all mortals ever!
If this is a folktale, is there a moral? What lesson can we learn? It’s easy to draw the wrong conclusion from these stories. Perhaps you have heard it said: be careful what you wish for or be careful what you ask for or even--and deeply mistaken--be careful what you pray for.
On the contrary, I’d like to suggest that it is well worth thinking about what it is we want or desire. It is worth naming. It is even worth praying for. Because in the very process of wanting or desiring and in examining and engaging and not censoring those desires or longings they may be refined and reshaped in ways that serve both our own true good and God's greater glory. Befriending our desires, as one writer puts it, or heeding our deepest longings and giving them space to be transformed and sharpened or perhaps even sublimated or abandoned, is a profound spiritual practice and a necessary one. Saint Augustine of Hippo who lived in the late 4th and early 5th centuries was the great saint of desire and delight and love. He knew firsthand the depths of human desires and admittedly did not always navigate them well. But he came to recognize that the only adequate object or goal of our desires is God. He is famous for teaching: “Our hearts are restless, oh God, until they rest in you.”
This saying sometimes frightens people. Does loving God with all our heart mean we can have no other loves? No. Rather Augustine talks about the right ordering of loves. As he says: “…everybody loves but the question is, what is the object of their love.” His advice is to examine our loves—all our loves, all our longings, all our desires—and look for what they are honestly moving deep, deep within us before the face of God.
Augustine continues: “So, am I telling you to give up loving? Not at all! If you love nothing you will become lazy dead lifeless creatures. Love, by all means; but take care what it is you love.”
This is good advice for the 5th century and for any century, especially when we realize that what we are being invited to is not the suppression of our desires but the deepening of our desires, getting more and not less in touch with them, naming them, focusing on them and even fanning them. And in this Saint Paul tells us, the spirit helps us with sighs and groans too deep for words. It is this wordless prayer, this interior groaning, which is arena of the deepening and cherishing, the purifying and right ordering of our desires. Cherishing our deepest desires, we enter into relationship with them, and they become educated, reformed, expanded, transfigured, more adequate, all embracing and simpler.
I believe this happened with Solomon and maybe with the woodsman and his wife and their sausage. Because this is the mystery of sanctification. We come to know ourselves. And we come to know God, to love what God loves. We come to desire what God commands, we come to long for what God envisions and to love what God intends. And in that is our happiness, that is delight, that is freedom and that is becoming who we are.
And the moral, the lesson of this fairy tale? Don't be too worried about what you wish for or what you desire or what you ask for or long for on the inside, or what you pray for. Your very open, honest, prayerful engagement with these desires allows them to be transmuted by God’s love into something beautiful… something beautiful for you and me and something beautiful for God.
And by the way, what do you want God to give you today?
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