The Alphabet of our Lives

I love telling stories, but I also enjoy hearing or reading a good story. Father Ron Rolheiser is a master storyteller and that is one of the reasons I enjoy reading what he writes. I am currently reading one of his books: Our One Great Act of Fidelity: Waiting for Christ in theEucharist. Below, I share one of the stories he uses in that wonderful little book.

There is a story told about a Jewish farmer who, because he was careless, had to spend a Sabbath day in his field. Preoccupied with his work, he had let the sun go down without going home. Now, being a pious believer, he was not allowed to travel until sunset the next day. So he spent the day in the field, by himself, missing both the Seder meal with his family and the services at the synagogue. When he finally did return home the next evening, he was met by an irate wife and an equally upset rabbi. The rabbi chided him for his carelessness and asked him, "What did you do in the field by yourself all day? Did you at least pray?"

"Rabbi," the farmer answered, "I'm not a very smart man and I don't know many prayers. All the prayers I knew, I said in five minutes. What I did the rest of the day was simply recite the alphabet. I left it up to God to make some words out of all those letters."

Father Rolheiser then concludes: "We leave it to God to make the words out of the alphabet of our lives."