Sayings
of a Gadfly
by Max Maxwell
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A man asked the Gadfly, “My relationship with my wife is so difficult. How do I make it better when it is just plain failing?” The Gadfly said to him, “Expend your energies like the rain. A rainstorm does not exhaust itself upon one small piece of infertile ground, but moves on to water whole valleys and forests. Be like the rain and move on.” The man asked with a hopeful voice, “Are you telling me to leave my wife and move on?” The Gadfly answered,
“There is so much misery in your relationship because you look at your beloved
as just a small piece of ground to use as a rest and a distraction from your own
journey. Your beloved is not a piece of ground but a whole world, which you
have left unexplored and unknown. She is not yours to use as a crutch unto your
stagnation, but is a wing for your soul that you may fly uninhibited to the
fulfillment of your journey. For fear of the heights, you have made yourself
content to remain grounded and stationary. There you are, standing still in the
desert of your own heart. So now you have also poured out your entire gift into
your beloved’s desert as well. And you want to leave her because your eyes are
tearing from her lifeless dust. Indeed I tell you, move on. Move on from your
loitering in the dry parts of your heart. Do not pour out your heart’s sacred
gift only to your beloved’s desert. Travel also to her fertile valleys, and to
her oceans, and to her skies. But you have not done this, because in order to
embrace your beloved’s fertile valleys you must depart from your own desert.
And to know the glories of her ocean’s depths and the beauty of her sky’s
heights, you must spit out your own lifeless dust and be done with loitering in
the emptiness of your own wasteland. Be like the rain and move on.” |
© Copyright 2014 Kenneth J Maxwell Jr.