Under the Fig Tree

A Dialogue with St. Arsenius

Disciple:

Father, I am not lost, but I am weary.

Too many voices call my name.

They tell me where to stand, how to walk, what to wear, what to become.

My feet touch the ground, yet I have no place to rest them.

St. Arsenius:

If your feet touch the earth, you are already guided.

Do not ask them to run while your heart is homeless.

Disciple:

They tell me to keep my eyes on my feet.

Yet they also send me to many doors.

I knock, I speak, I listen.

I grow tired of standing in thresholds.

St. Arsenius:

A threshold is not a dwelling.

Remain only long enough to learn humility, then sit down.

Disciple:

I fear sitting down will look like disobedience.

St. Arsenius:

Stillness is not disobedience when it guards prayer.

Disobedience is to scatter the heart until it can no longer hear God.

Disciple:

I do not know what to call myself.

My name feels too heavy.

My clothing feels like speech when I long for silence.

St. Arsenius:

Then do not name yourself.

God knows your name without garments.

He clothed Adam only after the fall.

Disciple:

I desire only simplicity.

To be hidden.

To belong without explanation.

But the path toward this seems filled with words and arrangements.

St. Arsenius:

The way to the desert is always crowded at first.

Many follow you there.

Few remain when silence begins to speak.

Disciple:

What should I do now, Father?

St. Arsenius:

Do less.

Stay where love has placed you.

Pray.

Eat.

Sleep.

Do not solve what God is still emptying.

Disciple:

Will the shelter come?

St. Arsenius:

Yes.

But it will not look like certainty.

It will look like enough.

Disciple:

And if doors keep closing?

St. Arsenius:

Then thank God.

Walls teach a man how to pray inside his own heart.

Disciple:

Remain with me.

St. Arsenius:

I am already silent beside you.