Making Amends

I remember years ago, at a retreat (an annual event at my school) a priest telling a story of two men seeking to make amends for their sins. In my memory of the story, they approached Jesus but I have found similar references to Muslim's approaching an Iman, Imam Ja’fer As-Sadiq Alaihis Salaam to be precise, with a similar request, seeking forgiveness and a means to make amends.

One of the men said that he had committed two big sins while the other admitted that his sins had been many, but small. The first man was told to fetch two large boulders, the heaviest he could carry while the other was told to gather up a pebble for every sin he had committed.

After a time, they both returned. The first man was then told to return the two boulders to where he had found them, which he did though with great difficulty as the boulders were heavy as his sins were great. The second man was then told to return each pebble to precisely where he had found it. An overwhelming task.

I've thought of this story often over the years, though perhaps not often enough. Like most people, I expect that were I one of those men, I would have been sent to fetch both boulders and pebbles!

Today though, I was reminded of another aspect of the story that has struck me over the years. In my childhood, I somehow imagined the pebbles as smooth, shiny beads, as if part of a rosary. Like the pebbles at the bottom of a chrystal stream from my childhood or mermaid's tears on a beach. I have no idea why that would even matter but there was some comfort in the thought. That once we recognised our wrongs, we would find some quiet solace on the road to forgiveness. Taking a picture very early this morning, of shadows playing across gravel, it struck me that my pebbles are not such pretty stones but edgy , sharp and bruising, the hurt they caused clearer in playback than at the moment they were dropped on the path , beneath bare feet.

Have a good weekend, and if you can, sweep your path of such stones.