In truth, my brother, there are so many stones in this selion, I despair of growing anything here. Simon-Peter and Andrew have chosen another life. They have chosen to go back to the land, and have found a place at the edge of the land, and near to the margins of the other country. They have chosen to live upon the land they work. They have chosen a life without hubris but within the tragedy of the cherespolositsa, where tractors are crawling, where folks are clawing, and come, come there's a wondrous land for the hopeful heart, for the willing hand. They have chosen to return to that which may only be left behind. And may you never be tired my brother, and yes, you may take my sieve for removing the stones. It is the slowest work but already I have removed many, many stones from the selion. I have collected them in seven σπυρίδες spyrídes, of the kind Paul hid within to escape Damascus. And I mixed three measures of the stones I have removed from the selion with one of donkey dung and from out of the spyrídes now grow seven fig trees, where the roots are both challenged and rewarded, where the roots reach down into the spyrídes as if into the mountain’s harsh southern slopes. My brother, they say, once you start removing stones, you end doing nothing but. It is true, there is a fascination in it, and let’s call our fascination the nothing but. Just as the poet ends in nothing but words, and the painter ends in nothing but paints, so we shall be brought up against our end here in this selion of stones. And there are always more stones rising to the surface. Yes, when it rains, the soil is washed away to reveal more stones; and when days are dry and windy, the soil shrinks back and the stones show whitely in the sun. We shall farm the stones, we shall grow stones, we shall take the stones to market. We battle endlessly against the stones rising from the depths of the land, and we battle the birds and the caterpillars - without these, we are nothing. We are their equal, or we are nothing. We do not master them, nor are we defeated, or else we are nothing. And we fight against the temptation to hate our own land, or we are nothing. Yes, that too but there is also an endless negotiation, and an endless making of peace with the elements. Or we are nothing. We love these selions and no others, we love this alternating ribbon of ridge and furrow, we attend the land, we accept its wilfulness. Or we are nothing. The tenant Hans did not like the industrial husbandry but was compelled to it after Bodenbauer terminated his land! My brother, for those who have chosen, as we have chosen the cherespolositsa, there is always another choice to make, and once they have started on the business of choosing, they have no choice but to go on choosing until they are reduced by their own choices to what they are brought up against at the end. And yet, my brother, for those who had no choice, it is no different, they are also reduced to the same place. We are brought always, by whatever path, up against what confronts us as do the stones of our selions. Within our choosing there is compulsion, and within our compulsions there is a desire, not for change, but for changes. Then, let us now recall our teacher’s parable of the spinster Jesse and the leavened bread. For many years, Jesse rose early every morning to bake the loaves she had made the night before, and which she sold beside the road. By this means she earned a meagre living. One morning, Jesse found the bread unrisen and she remembered she had not hidden the leaven within the dough the night before. That day, there was no bread for her to sell. Instead, she hid the leaven within the dough which had already rested overnight. The next day, she baked the bread and found it uncommonly soft, with a fine flavour. She chose to sell bread only every second day. On the first evening she stirred three measures of water into three measures of meal and gathered together a dough that rested through the night. On the first morning she did not bake. On the second evening, Jesse hid the leaven within the dough. On the second morning she baked the loaves, reserving a piece of dough as the leaven, and sold them beside the road. This unevenness of the days did not please her. My brother, let us interrupt the story there, let us change the story, we have new experiences of the true bread that we can add to it as a sort of leaven. My brother, the story does not change, we understand it differently as we change ourselves, as our lives go on and we break off our course, one way then another, but the story is the same, and so we change our telling of it. And yet, my brother, I do still wish to interrupt it and to change it, I wish to add the question of the tempter and our teacher and the bread and the stones: ‘if thou be the Son of Man, command that these stones become bread.’ My brother, that is not the temptation, you have already changed it. But it is the place we are at, it is the end we are brought up against, it is the temptation that sets magic against works but now tell me where the temptation is if it is not also in the question, ‘whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude?’ For what is work but the bringing forth of true bread from stones? That is our work, the bread is of our flesh, the work of our flesh is as one with the bread that it brings from out of stones. My brother, the temptation is in the definite stones before us that are set against the indefinite bread that could be, there is already work but it is hard, we are tempted by the bread of other means. If we refuse the other means, then we go further into the work, where there is nothing but the words, nothing but the paints, nothing but the bread. We find ourselves nearing a threshold, a vanishing point, beyond which lies the other country. In our work, there is a narrowing, and through our work there is a narrowing of our love and of our attention and of our acceptance. And as we approach the border that is set by the narrowing of our work in the words, the paints, the bread, so we find there, beyond the narrowing, the other country. And every step I take takes me further from heaven. Is there a heaven? I'd like to think so. Brother, if you are seeking to escape across the border to the other country, then run and do not walk - if you are challenged at the border by the guards and you are walking, you shalt halt at their order to halt, but if thou art running, no matter how slowly, and they order you to halt, then you shall run harder, you shall run as fast as you are able. That we might go to ground, amen. He who walks towards the border with the other country shalt halt at the order of the guards, and he who already runs, shalt run faster. That we might go to ground. Amen. Then, let us go on with the story. Jesse was not pleased by the unevenness of the days so she chose to bake only on the third day, setting two days of resting, against the one of baking. On the first day, she stirred the water into the meal and left the dough to rest through the first night, the first morning, the second night and the second morning, on the third night she hid the leaven within the dough and on the third morning she baked the loaves, reserving a piece of dough as the leaven. By the third morning, the unground grains were close to germinating and their stickiness strengthened the dough so that the bread rose as never before. Jesse saw that the bread improved with each day the dough was left to rest. Then she chose to bake the loaves only on the fourth day, reserving a piece of dough as the leaven. Then she chose to bake them only on the fifth day, reserving a piece of dough as the leaven. Then she chose to bake only on the sixth day, reserving a piece of dough as the leaven. She no longer earned her living by selling bread but in the narrowing of her life she became a mendicant beside the road. She begged for the means to make the bread. And so she went on baking loaves. Not for money and not for food, but for the bread itself, nothing but the bread itself, which was not for eating but which she cast aside. The bread, which was her body, did not please her. She chose to bake only on the seventh day, and on the sixth night she did not hide the leaven within the dough. On the seventh morning, the loaves rose without the leaven, and she did not reserve a piece of dough as the leaven. The loaves were now the leaven and the leaven was nothing but the loaves. Jesse had found the moment between the leavened, which is hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and the unleavened, which is true temptation, for what is leaven but meal and water and the days passing by, only for them to return again and again? The loaves of the seventh morning were strong but hard and bitter. She broke them open, and looked inside for the truth of them, and then she cast them back into the oven as a fisherman will cast back a fish, to watch it, silvery and vanishing, returning to the waters. And the loaves of the seventh day were consumed by the fire. From the dough of the seventh day, you shall lift up a cake as your offering; as the offering of the threshing floor, so you shall lift it up. From the dough of the seventh day, you shall give to the Lord an offering in thanks for the first to the sixth of your generations which brought you to the dough of the seventh day. Simon-Peter and Andrew stand before the selion of stones on the one side and the parable of Jesse and the leaven on the other. My brother, I ate of Jesse's bread and I slept in Jesse's bed, this is what we are brought up against at the end, the definite stones and the indefinite bread, and the work and the magic between. Brother, if I begin by removing stones, then I shall never stop, I shall never see the other country. And what of it brother? It will not see me, my life shall be nothing but stones. And in the indefinite quantity of your nothing but, shall be hidden the definite quality of everything else.
