! ! How To Quarrel

There were two monks who shared a cell in perfect amity. Yet they, concerned to perfect their compassion for all humankind, wished to know all mankind’s troubles. Mankind, said the one, seems always to be quarrelling – always too ready to pick some fight - how can this be? It seems, said the other, that in order to assert their selfhood and to be ‘somebody’, they must then invent an enemy, who seeks to take something from them that they deserve to have… so then, they can allot a ‘mine’ and ‘thine’, and pick a violent quarrel to prove their right to be themselves… they’ll find anything so to label – ‘my tribe, your tribe’—even though to anyone else, they seem the same – my religion, your religion – though God is unaware of any such division or allegiance; or when they’re really desperate for something to fight about, ‘my postcode public territory, your postcode public territory’… Oh dear Lord, said the other monk, how can we have compassion for these suffering souls? We’ve never had a quarrel… Then we must invent one, said the first monk: suppose I draw a line in chalk along the floor of our cell.. and then we’ll call one side, my space, the other yours… And this he did. Now, he said, we can have a quarrel: look, I’m standing in your half of the room… No you’re not, said the other, it’s not my half…yes it is, we’ve agreed, said the one… Oh very well then, take it … you win! said the other.. But there’s nothing to take! said the first… The two monks sat and sighed. They would never know how human kind could ever own anything worth the quarrel over. How difficult a holy life can be. Have compassion, then, for the plight of those two monks… * [Based on a story from the early days of the Desert Fathers]