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A Zen Buddhist story tells of a father arriving home to find that his house had been set afire. Not far from the house, he noticed a small corpse. He presumed it to be his son, smoldering in embers. He burned the corpse and committed the ashes to the earth. Months later, the son returned home: thieves had kidnapped the boy. The son knocked at the door at midnight, waking the father. The boy shouted, “Let me in!” The father asked, “Who is it?” “Your son!” Exclaimed the father, “You can’t be my son, for he is dead, and I've already buried him.” The father, refusing to let his son in, lost him a second time.
Presuming led the father to a fixed position on his belief that his son was dead. After attaching to that belief in an inflexible manner, letting the belief totally shut him off from another interpretation, he was unable to respond to the truth of his son being alive. Likewise, religious belief becomes idolatrous when, rather than it opening us to the truth, we close down in a tenacious grip on our presumption. Indeed, belief is a wonderful servant, but an awful master.
Never did one wise person teach
Belief is truth
Brian K. Wilcox
OneLife Ministries is a pastoral outreach and nurture ministry of the First United Methodist Church, Fort Meade, FL. For Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Counseling, spiritual formation workshops, Christian meditation retreats, or more information about OneLife, write Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox at briankwilcox@comcast.net.
Brian's book of mystical love poetry, An Ache for Union, can be ordered through major bookdealers.
Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors
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