ON MOVING MOUNTAINS

From the beginning he always wanted to move mountains with his faith.  At the age of five he began by trying to move spoons, forks and marbles; later, as a teenager, he continued trying with tops and Mexican cup-and-ball toys but without success.  As an adult he attempted stones and bricks, and still no success.  He studied the Torah, Kabbalah, the Quran, the Gospels, and a hundred different philosophical systems . . . but still he never managed to move anything from anywhere.  Everywhere he went he would try moving an object, because he knew that with a bit of faith the size of a mustard seed he could move a mountain.  At least that’s what he’d been told.  

What he really wanted was to move Mt. Everest to the Mojave Desert and do away with the inferno where he lived.  He tried strengthening his faith by doing push-ups, squatting on his haunches, meditating afternoons and evenings.  He would close his eyes and gesticulate with his hands as if he were levitating the highest Himalayan ranges and transporting them through the sky without causing an accident or earthquake in the attempt. Then he would draw the curtain of his bedroom to see if it had worked.  He would open his eyes and open them again, hoping to see that eternal mountain but . . . nothing; everything stayed where it had always been.  The failures accumulated and he never did learn to move mountains, although the desire never left him.  

As a last recourse, he joined the first church he could find that promised to increase his faith to the monumental dimensions required.  Nothing of the kind happened. Not even a modest hill, as far as can be ascertained.  In light of this disappointment he suspended the effort and decided instead to improve the air conditioning in his spacious home and take in every orphaned child he could find to save them from the sweltering desert heat.  Next he founded a clinic to rehabilitate drug addicts who were on the verge of suicide.  He dedicated the rest of his life to building hospitals and orphanages.  He even rescued giraffes and snakes.  He saved a life here, another life there, a home here, a home there, for the rest of his days.  People began seeking him out, leaving everything behind to follow him.  People came down from the hills and mountains, from villages and towns, even whole cities came looking for him. 

He never moved mountains; they ended up moving themselves.  People loved him for his faith, of whatever size it was.  It all happened without him realizing it—committed, doing good the only way he knew how.  It never occurred to him that mountains have feet and hands, and that they walk from town to town smiling from ear to ear.  Nor did he think people could steal his heart as he served and loved the poor.  Mountains flocked to him endlessly.


Translation by Prof. David Rock