A simple question, yet so seldom we, as practicing Christians, think about it. I didn't understand my own needs.
Life is a paradoxical experience.
It is impossible that not even Elijah will be able to answer all our questions when the Messiah comes. How else can one capture the essence of mystery except through story-telling or parable. In the Benedictine Order, all monks take five vows, along with the regular evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, each monks takes a vow of stability and conversion of ways or life. Such a vow seems presumptuous to many, but at the heart of this presumption is the fact that without metanoia or on-going conversion one cannot truly change, and finally convert this change into action in the world. They are people whom a mere nothing, can make happy whether a blackbird in the grass, lichens on the wall, or a patch of sunlight on a tree.