The Little Fox
A Tale About Prayer
In Egypt, in whose ancient Christian
past there had once been many grand monasteries, there once lived a monk who
befriended an uneducated and simple peasant farmer. One day this peasant said
to the monk, “I too respect God who created this world! Every evening I pour
out a bowl of goat’s milk and leave it out under a palm tree. In the evening
God comes and drinks up my milk! He is very fond of it! There’s never once been
a time when even a drop of milk is left in the bowl.”
Hearing these words, the monk could
not help smiling. He kindly and logically explained to his friend that God
doesn’t need a bowl of goat’s milk. But the peasant so stubbornly insisted that
he was right that the monk then suggested that the next night they secretly
watch to see what happened after the bowl of milk was left under the palm tree.
No sooner said than done. When night
fell, the monk and the peasant hid themselves some distance from the tree, and
soon in the moonlight they saw how a little fox crept up to the bowl and lapped
up all the milk till the bowl was empty.
“Indeed!” the peasant sighed
disappointedly. “Now I can see that it wasn’t God!”
The monk tried to comfort the peasant
and explained that God is a spirit, that God is something completely beyond our
poor ability to comprehend in our world, and that people comprehend His presence
each in their own unique way. But the peasant merely stood hanging his head
sadly. Then he wept and went back home to his hovel.
The monk also went back to his cell,
but when he got there he was amazed to see an angel blocking his path. Utterly
terrified, the monk fell to his knees, but the angel said to him:
“That simple fellow had neither
education nor wisdom nor book-learning enough to be able to comprehend God
otherwise. Then you with your wisdom and book learning took away what little he
had! You will say that doubtless you reasoned correctly. But there’s one thing
that you don’t know, oh learned man: God, seeing the sincerity and true heart
of this good peasant, every night sent the little fox to that palm tree to
comfort him and accept his sacrifice.”
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