Sunday 5 July 2009

The Almighty

I went to the Quaker Meeting House today and an elderly man told an interesting story. It goes like this. A vicar in a rural village went to call on an old man. They had a cup of tea and the old man then offered to show the vicar his garden. They went out together into the garden and the vicar was thrilled by the garden as it was stacked with flowers, fruit and vegetables. The vicar expressed his surprise and delight and then turned to old man and said, 'So what do you think that the Almighty has to do with this?' The old man thought for a while and then he said, 'Well, vicar, I really can't say. But I would comment that when this place was left to the Almighty it looked a really terrible mess.' I don't know why but this story appealed to me. It is quite typical of the Quakers who believe in getting on with it yourself, rather than relying on divine intervention.

2 comments:

Tash said...

This reminds me of when I was in High School, a fellow mom came to my mom after a concert and said -- in my earshot -- "She really has a gift from God." And I thought, dude, I practice 6-8 hours A DAY. This is ME, it's MINE, I worked it, I own it. It seemed to me to blow off all the work I did, and make it seem like magic.

So I get this. Bella's attending a Quaker school this Fall, and I'm actually pretty excited about the whole prospect.

Anonymous said...

Our garden was also left to the almighty before we got here and he took a rather natural approach to it. Not to everyones taste.

I love the story. I think my granny used to say (or at least someone said to me at an impressionable age) that 'god helps those that help themselves'. Which I guess meant do not bother praying for a solution unless you are prepared to work for it yourself. love catherine