The Crumbling Tent

Amma Syncletica and the Disciple Who Could No Longer Do What She Once Did

A sister came to Amma Syncletica and said:

“Mother, my body has become my prison. I cannot walk as I once did. I tire quickly. Pain accompanies me day and night. My memory fails me. I cannot pray with the fervor I had in my youth. I have become useless, and a great sadness has come upon me.”

The Amma looked at her for a long while and said:

“Who told you that your value was in your strength?”

The sister answered:

“I do not know, Mother. Yet I feel as though I have become less.”

The Amma said:

“You have not become less. You have become poor. There is a difference.”

The sister wept.

The Amma continued:

“When you were young and strong, you could labor, keep vigils, and help others. You could move from place to place and complete many tasks. But now God is taking from you every coin with which you purchased your identity.”

The sister said:

“Then why does it hurt so much?”

The Amma replied:

“Because every idol screams as it dies.”

The sister said:

“Mother, I am ashamed of my sadness.”

The Amma answered:

“Do not be ashamed of your tears. Be ashamed only if you cling to the illusion that you should never have become weak.”

Again the sister said:

“But I cannot accept it. I remember who I was.”

The Amma said:

“No, child. You remember who you imagined yourself to be. The body was always passing away. You simply did not notice its passing.”

The sister lowered her head.

The Amma said:

“When the Lord wishes to save a soul, He often removes one support after another until the soul can no longer stand except by leaning entirely upon Him.”

The sister said:

“Then why do I feel abandoned?”

The Amma replied:

“Because the place where you once found consolation is empty. God has emptied it. He has not abandoned you. He has merely gone before you into the emptiness.”

The sister asked:

“What am I to do with this heaviness?”

The Amma answered:

“Carry it as the paralytic carried his bed. Do not wait until you feel strong again. You will not be given back your former life. Kiss the weakness. Bless the pain. Offer God your inability.”

The sister said:

“But I can do almost nothing.”

The Amma smiled.

“At last.”

The sister looked up in confusion.

The Amma said:

“Now you are beginning to understand prayer. The proud man brings God his accomplishments. The old, the infirm, and the broken can bring Him only themselves.”

The sister wept greatly.

Then Amma Syncletica said:

“Listen carefully. There is a grief that comes because we love God, and there is a grief that comes because we have lost the image of ourselves that we preferred. Search your heart and see which grief is yours.”

After a long silence the sister said:

“I mourn the loss of myself.”

The Amma said gently:

“Then mourn, child. Bury her. Do not try to resurrect her. The woman you were cannot save you.”

The sister said:

“Who then remains?”

The Amma replied:

“The one who has nothing left to prove, nothing left to become, and nowhere to hide from God. The one who sits in her weakness and waits upon His mercy. That woman is very near to the Kingdom.”

And the sister departed, carrying both her sorrow and a strange consolation, for she had learned that the crumbling of the body may become the uncovering of the soul.