Photo was taken under Ben Bulben Mountain, near Sligo (Irl)

A fly takes a moment to itself on a branch of a fern.

Thought on Thursday – August – 30/08/2012

‘A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains’ ~Dutch Proverb

There is a lovely story told by the Jews from ancient times about an old man, well over a hundred years, who wandered into Abraham’s camp just before nightfall. Abraham being a good Jew welcomed the man and offered him hospitality. While the food was cooking Abraham suggested that they pray together. Abraham raised his hands and his eyes towards Heaven and began the evening prayer. After a while looking down he saw the old man worshipping the camp fire.

Stopping for a moment he raised the old man up to direct his prayers to the Almighty. A moment later Abraham was looking down and he saw that the old man was on his knees again worshipping the fire. Abraham pulled him back to his way of praying. But it kept happening, the more Abraham corrected him, the more he insisted on returning to the fire. In the end Abraham had enough and kicked him out of the camp. As he returned to his prayers he looked up to heaven and said, “See Lord how much I love you”. There was silence and then he heard the Lord saying, “Abraham, I have put up with that old man for the past 100 years and you cannot even put up with him for five minutes!” The moral of the story is to ask ourselves how patient we are with the limitations of others.