Anthony de Mello: The song of the Bird


[Den ser ut som en New Age-bok, titeln låter som en New Age-bok, och den är fylld av västerländskt österländsk visdom, men den är skriven av en jesuitpater och försedd med Imprimatur. Den består av ett antal små anekdoter som är tematiskt ordnade och bildar en slags kontinuitet. Meningen är att man skall tänka sig att historierna handlar om en själv, och inte om någon annan. Författaren vill att man skall läsa alla historierna i en följd och i rätt ordning för att budskapet skall gå fram. Så kommer det inte att bli här.]

(sid 23 ff:)

Do you wish to catch a glimpse of God? Look intently at creation. (...) In the Gospel of Saint John we read: The Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us... (...) Gaze at things. It won't be long before you see the Word. The Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us...

(sid 39:)

The devil once went for a walk with a friend. They saw a man ahead of them stoop down and pick up something from the ground.

“What did that man find?” asked the friend.

“A piece of truth,” said the devil.

“Doesn’t that disturb you?” asked the friend.

“No,” said the devil, “I shall let him make a belief out of it.”

(sid 40 f:)

Nasruddin ^{(1, 2)} was in a philosophical frame of mind: “Life and death - who can say what they are?” His wife, who was busy in the kitchen, overheard him and said, “You men are all alike - quite unpractical. Anyone can tell that when a man's extremities are rigid and cold, he is dead.”

Nasruddin was impressed by his wife's practical wisdom. Once when he was out in the winter snow, he felt his hands and feet go numb. “I must be dead,” he thought. Then came a further thought: “What am I doing walking around if I am dead? I should be lying down like a normal corpse.” Which is just what he did.

An hour later, a group of travelers, finding him by the roadside, began to argue whether he was alive or dead. Nasruddin yearned to cry out, “You fools, can't you see my extremities are cold and rigid?” But he knew better than to say that, for corpses do not talk.

The travelers finally concluded he was dead, and hoisted the corpse onto their shoulders with a view to carrying it to the cemetery for burial. They hadn't gone far when they came to a forking of the ways. A fresh dispute arose among them as to which road led to the cemetery. Nasruddin put up with this for as long as he could. Then he sat up and said, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but the road that leads to the cemetery is the one to your left. I know that corpses do not speak, but I have broken the rule this once and I assure you it will not happen again.”

(sid 42:)

A Christian scholar who held the Bible to be literally true was once accosted by a scientist who said, “According to the Bible the earth was created some five thousand years ago. But we have discovered bones that point to life on earth a million years ago.”

Pat came the answer: “When God created earth five thousand years ago, he deliberately put those bones in to test our faith and see if we would believe his Word rather than scientific evidence.”

(sid 43:)

The village preacher was visiting the home of an elderly parishioner and, over a cup of coffee, he was answering some of the questions that Grandma was putting him.

“Why does the Lord send us epidemics every so often?” asked the old woman.

“Well,” said the preacher, “sometimes people become so wicked they have to be removed and so the good Lord allows the coming of epidemics.”

“But,” objected Grandma, “then why do so many good people get removed with the bad?”

“The good ones are summoned for witnesses,” explained the preacher. “The Lord wants to give every soul a fair trial.”

(sid 53:)

The village priest was distracted in his prayers by children playing outside his window. To get rid of them he shouted, “There’s a terrible monster down at the river. Hurry there and you will see him breathing through his nostrils.”

Soon the whole village had heard of this monstrous apparition and was rushing to the river. When the priest saw this he joined the crowd. As he panted his way to the river, which was four miles away, he thought, “It is true I invented the story. Still, you can never tell!”

(sid 59:)

A prophet once came to a city to convert its inhabitants. At first the people listened to his sermons, but they gradually drifted away till there was not a single soul to hear the prophet when he spoke.

One day a traveler said to him, “Why do you go on preaching?”

Said the prophet, “in the beginning I hoped to change these people. If I still shout it is only to prevent them from changing me.”

(sid 62:)

Mullah Nasruddin went to China. There he gathered a group of disciples whom he was preparing for enlightenment. As soon as they became enlightened, the disciples stopped attending his lectures!

(sid 63:)

When the guru sat down to worship each evening the ashram cat would get in the way and distract the worshipers. So he ordered that the cat be tied during evening worship.

After the guru died the cat continued to be tied during evening worship. And when the cat expired, another cat was brought to the ashram so that it could be duly tied during evening worship.

Centuries later learned treatises were written by the guru’s scholarly disciples on the liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship is performed.

(sid 72-73:)

When the bishop’s ship stopped at a remote island for a day, he determined to use the time as profitably as possible. He strolled along the seashore and came across three fishermen mending their nets. In pidgin English they explained to him that centuries before they had been Christianized by missionaries. “We, Christians!” they said, proudly pointing to one another.

The bishop was impressed. Did they know the Lord’s Prayer? They had never heard of it. The bishop was shocked.

“What do you say, then, when you pray?”

“We lift our eyes in heaven. We pray, ‘We are three, you are three, have mercy on us.’ The bishop was appalled at the primitive, the downright heretical nature of their prayer. So he spent the whole day teaching them the Lord’s Prayer. The fishermen were poor learners, but they gave it all they had and before the bishop sailed away next day he had the satisfaction of hearing them go through the whole formula without a fault.

Months later the bishop’s ship happened to pass by those islands again and the bishop, as he paced the deck saying his evening prayers, recalled with pleasure the three men on that distant island who were now able to pray, thanks to his patient efforts. While he was lost in the thought he happened to look up and noticed a spot of light in the east.
The light kept approaching the ship and, as the bishop gazed in wonder, he saw three figures walking on the water. The captain stopped the boat and everyone leaned over the rails to see this sight.

When they were within speaking distance, the bishop recognized his three friends, the fishermen. “Bishop!” they exclaimed. “We hear your boat go past island and come hurry hurry meet you.”

“What is it that you want?” asked the awe-stricken bishop.

“Bishop,” they said, “we so, so sorry. We forget lovely prayer. We say, ‘Our Father in heaven, holy be your name, your kingdom come ...’ then we forget. Please tell us prayer again.”

The bishop felt humbled. “Go back to your homes, my friends,” he said, “and each time you pray, say, “We are three, you are three, have mercy on us!’”

(sid 79:)

A man walking through the forest saw a fox that had lost its legs and wondered how it lived. Then he saw a tiger come in with game in its mouth. The tiger had its fill and left the rest of the meat to the fox.

The next day God fed the fox by means of the same tiger. The man began to wonder at God’s greatness and said to himself, “I too shall just rest in a corner with full trust in the Lord and he will provide me with all I need.”

He did this for many days but nothing happened, and he was almost at death’s door when he heard a voice say, “O you who are in the path of error, open your eyes to the truth! Follow the example of the tiger and stop imitating the disabled fox.”

(sid 80:)

On the street I saw a naked child, hungry and shivering in the cold. I became angry and said to God, “Why do you permit this? Why don’t you do something?”

For a while God said nothing. That night he replied, quite suddenly, “I certainly did something. I made you.”

(sid 84-85:)

THE JOB

Enter first applicant.

“You understand that this is a simple test we are giving you before we offer you the job you have applied for?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what is two plus two?”
“Four.”

Enter second applicant.

“Are you ready for the test?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what is two plus two?”
“Whatever the boss says it is.”

The second applicant got the job.

(sid 86:)

The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.

Said Aristippus, “If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.”

Said Diogenes, ”Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to cultivate the king.”

(sid 99-100:)

The lover knocked at the door of his beloved. “Who knocks?” said the beloved from within. “It is I,” said the lover.
“Go away. This house will not hold you and me.”

The rejected lover went into the desert. There he meditated for months on end, pondering the words of the beloved. Finally he returned and knocled at the door again.

“Who knocks?”
“It is you.”

The door was immidiately opened.

(sid 103:)

Disciple: I have come to you with nothing in my hands.

Master: Then drop it at once!

Disciple: But how can I drop it? It is nothing.

Master: Then carry it around with you!

(sid 106:)

When the Son of God was nailed to the cross and died, he went straight down to hell from the cross and set free all the sinners who were there in torment.

And the devil wept and mourned, for he thought he would get no more sinners for hell.

Then God said to him, “Do not weep, for I shall sent you all those who are self-righteous in their condemnation of sinners
And hell shall be filled up once more until I return ’

(sid 115-116:)

A reading from the scriptures:

This is what the Lord says: there was once a goose that laid a golden egg each day. And the farmer’s wife, who owned the goose, delighted in the riches that those eggs brought her. She was an avaricious woman, however, and could not wait patiently from day to day for her daily egg. She decided to kill the goose and get all the eggs at once.

Thus far the word of God!

An atheist heard that text from the scriptures and scoffed: You call that the word of God! A goose that lays golden eggs! It just goes to show the absurdity of your scriptures.

When a religious scholar read the text, he reacted thus: The Lord clearly tells us that there was a goose that laid golden eggs. If the Lord says this, then it must be true, no matter how absurd it appears to our poor minds.

Now you will ask, as well you may, how an egg, while not ceasing to be an egg, can, at the same time, be golden. Different schools of religious thoght attempt to explain it differently. But what is called for here is an act of faith in this mystery that baffles human understanding.

There was even a preacher who, inspired by that text, traveled through towns and villages zealously urging people to accept the fact that God had created golden eggs at some point in history.

(sid 121:)

When God walked into heaven and found that everyone was there, he wasn’t pleased at all. He owed it to his justice, did he not, to carry out his threats. So everyone was summoned to his throne and the angel asked to read the Ten Commandments.

The first commandment was announced. Said God, “All who have broken this command will now betake themselves to hell.” And so it was done.

The same was done with each of the commandments. By the time the angel came to read the seventh, no one was left in heaven except a recluse - smug and self-complacent.

God looked up and thought, “Only one person left in heaven? That makes it very lonesome.” So he shouted out, “Come back, everyone!”

When the recluse heard that everyone was forgiven, he yelled in rage, “This is unjust! Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

(sid 122:)

A very religious-minded old woman was dissatisfied with all existing religions, so she founded one of her own.

One day a reporter, who genuinely wanted to understand her point of view, said to her, “Do you really believe, as people say you do, that no one will go to heaven except you and your housemaid?”

The old woman pondered the question and the replied, “Well, I’m not so sure of Mary.”

(sid 123:)

“Why do you keep talking about my past mistakes?” said the husband. “I thought you had forgiven and forgotten.”

“I have, indeed, forgiven and forgotten,” said the wife. “But I want to make sure you don’t forget that i have forgiven and forgotten.”

(sid 147-148:)

Jesus Christ said he had never been to a football match. So we took him to one, my friends and I. It was a ferocious battle between the Protestant Punchers and the Catholic Crusaders.

The Crusaders scored first. Jesus cheered wildly and threw his hat high up in the air. Then the Punchers scored. And Jesus cheered wildly and threw his hat high up in the air.

This seemed to puzzle the man behind us. He tapped Jesus on the shoulder and asked, “Which side are you rooting for, my good man?”

“Me?” replied Jesus, visibly excited by the game. “Oh, I'm not rooting for either side. I’m just enjoying the game.”

The questioner turned to his neighbor and sneered, “Hmm, and atheist!”

(sid 149:)

A tourist says to his guide, “You have a right to be proud of your town. I was especially impressed with the number of churches in it. Surely the people here must love the Lord.”

“Well,” replied the cynical guide, “they may love the Lord, but they sure as hell hate each other.”

(sid 150:)

The Catholic football team was on its way to an important game. A reporter boarded the train and asked for the football coach.

“I understand,” said the reporter, “that you carry a chaplain to pray for the success of the team. would you mind introducing me to him?”

“That would be a pleasure,” said the coach. “Which one do you want to meet, the offensive or the defensive chaplain?”

(sid 157:)

Nasruddin had barely finished his discourse when one of the scoffers in the crowd said to him, “Instead of spinning spiritual theories, why don’t you show us something practical?”

Poor Nasruddin was nonplussed. “What kind of practical thing would you want me to show you?” he asked.

Pleased that he had mortified the mullah and was making an impression on the crowd, the scoffer said, “For instance, show us an apple from the garden of Paradise.”

Nasruddin immediately picked up an apple and handed it to the man. “But this apple is bad on one side,” said the man. “Surely a heavenly apple would be perfect.”

“A celestial apple would, indeed, be perfect,” said the mullah. “But given your present faculties, this is as near to a heavenly apple as you will ever get.”

(sid 162:)

The Jewish mystic Baal Shem had a curious way of praying to God. “Remember, Lord,” he would say, “you need me just as much as I need you. if you did not exist, whom would I pray to? If I did not exist, who would do the praying?”

(sid 164:)

“What a singer! His voice filled the hall.”

“Yes, several of us had to leave the hall to make room for it!”