The Dry Stick

So this blessed John, from his youth until he reached the full maturity of manhood, was subject to his elder as long as the old man went on living in this world. He carried out his commands with such humility that the elder himself was utterly astonished at his obedience. Wanting to make sure whether this virtue came from genuine faith and deep simplicity of heart, or whether it was put on, forced as it were, and shown only in the presence of the one giving the order, he often laid on him many pointless, almost needless, or even impossible commands. Of these I will select three, to show those who wish to know how perfect his disposition and submission were. [a]

The old man took from his woodpile a stick that had been cut earlier and made ready for the fire. Since no occasion for cooking had come, it was lying there not merely dry but even moldy with age. He stuck it into the ground before John’s very eyes and ordered him to fetch water and water it twice a day, so that by this daily watering it might put down roots and come back to life as a tree, as it had been before, and spread out its branches, and give a pleasant sight to the eyes as well as shade to those who sat under it in the heat of summer. The young man received this order with his usual reverence, never considering that it was impossible, and carried it out day after day. He constantly carried water from nearly two miles away and never stopped watering the stick. For a whole year no bodily illness, no festival services, no necessary business (any of which might fairly have excused him from carrying out the command), and finally no harshness of winter could interfere and keep him from obeying this order.

For several days the old man watched this zeal of his on the sly without saying anything. He saw that John kept his command with simple willingness of heart, as if it had come from heaven, without any change of expression and without weighing whether it made sense. He approved the unfeigned obedience of his humility, and at the same time he pitied the wearisome labor that John had kept up for a whole year in the zeal of his devotion. So he came to the dry stick and said, “John, has this tree put down roots or not?” When John said that he did not know, the old man, as though trying to find out the truth of the matter and to test whether it was now holding by its roots, pulled up the stick in front of him with a slight disturbance of the earth. He threw it away and told him that from now on he could stop watering it.