The Soul and the Mill

This movement of the heart is fittingly enough illustrated by comparing it to a mill wheel, which the headlong rush of water whirls around with spinning force. It can never stop its work as long as it is driven around by the water; but it is in the power of the man who directs it to decide whether he will have wheat or barley or darnel ground by it. Whatever is put into it by the man in charge of that work must be crushed by it. In the same way the mind, through the trials of this present life, is driven about by the torrents of temptation pouring in on it from every side, and cannot be free from the flow of thoughts. But what kind of thoughts it should throw off or admit, it will provide for itself by the efforts of its own earnestness and diligence. For if, as we said, we constantly return to meditation on the Holy Scriptures, and raise our memory toward the remembrance of spiritual things, the desire for perfection and the hope of future bliss, spiritual thoughts are sure to rise from this and make the mind dwell on the things we have been meditating on. But if we are overcome by laziness or carelessness and spend our time in idle gossip, or are tangled up in the cares of this world and needless anxieties, the result will be that a kind of darnel will spring up and give our hearts harmful work to do. And as our Lord and Savior says, wherever the treasure of our works or purpose is, there our heart too is sure to stay. [a]