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“Toby’s father subscribed to the crazy idea that the Tree was growing. It was an extremely controversial notion, and the professor’s favorite subject. All the scientists argued about it. Does the Tree change? Is it eternal? Where did it come from? Will the world end? And, most important, above all: is there life beyond the Tree?”

It is a hard, humdrum existence, and only stolid cart horses like Marya Vasilyevna can bear it for a long time; lively, alert, impressionable people who talk about their calling and about serving the ideal are soon weary of it and give up the work.
-Anton Chekov’s “In the Cart”

The friars have just left their place in Oura and are living in their new wooden monastery in the hills. Their courage that Our Lady will provide for them is impressive, and so far they have been right! They serve Japanese Catholics and non-Catholics in complete obedience and without worry about the next day.

“My mother would always say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

The current chapter I’m on talks about how living in the present is bad when the reason for it is that the person has convinced themselves that the future will be good. I’ve always considered myself to be “living in the present”, but I’d never thought about why.