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Wisdom...

http://www.standrewfoolforchrist.org/beesandflies.htm

ELDER PAISIOS OF THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

Published 1998 (a quote from page 45)


The Elder started telling us:



I know from experience that in this life people are divided into two categories. A third category does not exist; people either belong to one or the other. The first one resembles the fly. The main characteristic of the fly is that it is attracted by dirt. For example, when a fly is found in a garden full of flowers with beautiful fragrances, it will ignore them and will go sit on top of some dirt on the ground. It will start messing around with it, and feel comfortable with the bad smell. If the fly could talk, and you asked it to show you a rose in the garden, it would answer: �I don�t even know what a rose looks like. I only know where to find garbage, toilets, and dirt.� There are some people who resemble the fly. People belonging to this category have learned to think negatively, and always look for the bad things in life, ignoring and refusing the presence of good.



The other category is like the bee whose main characteristic is that it always looks for something sweet and nice to sit on. When a bee is found in a room full of dirt and there is a small piece of sweet in the corner, it will ignore the dirt and will go to sit on top of the sweet. Now, if we ask the bee to show us where the garbage is, it will answer: �I don�t know. I can only tell you where to find flowers, sweets, honey and sugar.� It only knows the good things in life and is ignorant of all evil. This is the second category of people who have a positive thinking, and see only the good side of things. They always try to cover up the evil in order to protect their fellow men; on the contrary, people in the first category try to expose the evil and bring it to the surface.

When someone comes to me, starts to accuse other people, and puts me in a difficult situation, I tell him the above example. Then, I ask him to decide which category he wishes to belong, so he that he may find people of the same kind to socialize with.

Very clever

Yes, wonderful...but who is Bess?
-D

Typo...too late before I caught it and couldn't edit. Sorry. Should be "bees."

Dear Friends,

We had a priest in our parish who visited Athos and wrote a book about his experiences.

When he returned, he began a very ascetical life-style, sleeping on the floor in a school-room, praying the Jesus Prayer all night etc.

He reposed in the Lord a few years back, being VERY elderly.

(He sometimes really lost it during confessions when people told him they ate meat on Fridays and otherwise broke the fast - he raised his voice and frightened people so much the line to him became very short . . .)

I recently learned that he practiced self-mortification by donning shorts only, and running through bee-yards so that the bees might sting him.

A friend who witnessed this said that "we all heard the familiar cry of "Ow!" as Fr. Fedoriw ran among the hives again and again so as to annoy the bees more.

Alex

People in West Virginia used to say, "There are two kinds of people in the world--people who think there are two kinds of people and everyone else."

Really, it seems rather harsh and too easy to break all human experience up into two categories rather than, say, seeing people as part of a spectrum or as continually becoming. I have always greatly appreciated the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics who respond to "Are you saved?" with the answer "I have been, I am being and with God's help I shall be."

Besides that, I note a sad tendency among people to label others as flies and themselves as bees, thereby creating an Other.

aithfully,

bob

St. Paul bid us to hate the sin and not the sinner...The elder was just in speaking out against behaviours which diminish love.