You write that all your worldly goods were sold off to a third party. When you found yourself out on the street with nothing and nobody, you headed to the cemetery, bent on killing yourself. You had no doubts or second thoughts about this. Exhausted by the vexations, you lay down on your parents’ grave and fell asleep. Your mother appeared to you in your sleep and berated you, saying that in the Kingdom of God there were plenty of people who had been beggars, but not a single one of those who had done away with themselves. That dream saved you from suicide. Your beloved mother really did save you, by God’s providence. You began to beg and to live off begging. And you’re asking if, by doing so, you’re transgressing God’s law.
Take courage. God gave the commandment: ‘Don’t steal’. He didn’t give any commandment ‘Don’t beg’. Begging without any real need is stealing, but in your case it isn’t. The general and emperor Justinian was left blind in his old age, with no possessions or friends. He would sit, blind, outside the courtyard of the throne and beg for a little bread. As a Christian, he didn’t permit himself to consider suicide. Because, just as life’s better than death, so it’s better to be a beggar than a suicide. [Saint Nikolaj seems to be confusing two people here. There was a medieval Latin legend that Belisarius, Justinian’s great general, had his eyes put out and ended his days as a beggar, but this is generally, though not universally, held to be spurious. WJL]
You say that you’re overcome with shame and that your sorrow’s deep. You stand at night outside the coffee-shop that used to be yours and ask for money from those who go in and out. You remember that, until recently, you were the owner of the coffee-shop and now you don’t dare go in even as a customer. Your eyes are red from weeping and lamentation. Comfort yourself. God’s angels aren’t far from you. Why are you crying about the coffee-shop? Haven’t you heard of the coffee-shop at the other end of Belgrade where it says: ‘Someone’s it wasn’t; someone’s it won’t be’? Whoever wrote those words was a true philosopher. Because that’s true of all the coffee-shops, all houses all the castles and all the palaces in the world.
What have you lost? Something that you didn’t have when you were born and which isn’t yours now. You were the boss, now you’re poor. That’s not loss. Loss is when a person becomes a beast. But you were a person and have remained so. You signed some papers for certain of your prominent customers and now your coffee-shop’s in the hands of a stranger. Now you look through the window and see everybody laughing, just the way they used to, and you’re wandering the streets with tears in your eyes and covered in shame. Never fear, God’s just. They’ll all have to answer for their misdeeds. But when they attempt to commit suicide, who’s to say whether the merciful Lord will allow their mothers to appear to them from the other world in order to keep them from the crime? Don’t consider them successful even for a moment. Because you don’t know how they’ll end up. A wise man in ancient Greece said: ‘Never call anybody happy before the end’. It’s difficult to be a beggar? But aren’t we all? Don’t we all depend, every hour of every day, on the mercy of Him Who gives us a life to lead? Now you’ve got an important mission in the world: to engage people’s attention so that they remember God and their soul and to be charitable. Since you’re forced to live in silence, delve into your soul and talk to God through prayer. The life of a beggar’s more heroic than that of a boss. ‘For gold is tested in the fire and accepted people in the furnace of humility’ (Sir. 2, 5). But you’ve already demonstrated heroism by rejecting the black thought of suicide. This is a victory over the spirit of despondency. After this victory, all the others will be easy for you. The Lord will be at your side.
Peace and comfort from the Lord!
Source: Δρόμος χωρίς Θεό δεν αντέχεται…, Ιεραποστολικές επιστολές Α, En Plo Publications, pp. 121-3.
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This is a story of a child called Charlie who was diagnosed with cancer when he was only five years old. In fact, on the fifth day of the fifth month of 2005.
My name is Charlie Williams. I could have died by now. I recently found out I was not going to die. At Addenbrooke‘s Hospital I had to endure medical treatments that included radiotherapy, which involved me going into a cylindrical tunnel for about half an hour, which is quite scary for a 6 year old, as I was at the time.
I also had several MRI scans, also in a cylindrical tunnel, with all kinds of noises while you are inside. The chemotherapy was through a drip which was inserted into my body, in my upper chest, like a transfusion, and went on for a few hours at a time every month. I also had to have lots of blood transfusions. Needles aren’t the nicest thing in the world, and I used to be petrified of them, so you can imagine what it felt like for me to have them inserted into me so often as a child. But I’m used to them now.
Do you think you could cope with all that medical treatment? How do you think it would change you as a person? Being ill, and knowing that there may be a chance that you will lose the things that make up your life, makes you value those things. For instance, material things like computers and calculators, even pens and pencils, become special things in a way, because you realise that without them you would not have the tools for your education. A simple pencil may mean nothing to a child in my school, but to a child in, say, a poor village in Uganda, it may just be the start of a lifetime of education. I think about these kinds of things now after being ill for so long. In most classes in this school, there will always be one child (sometimes more, sometimes even three) who will distract the rest of the children by doing something daft or ~. It happens so often, maybe every five minutes, sometimes every minute. The person doing it seems to want to be the centre of attention he uses the whole class as his stage, to do his performance. He doesn’t really care that there are other people there who really want to learn the subject the teacher is teaching. He just wants to distract anyone else who, like him, doesn’t care about learning. He is basically being selfish. I just look at people like him and think, ‘why’? Once in a blue moon, I will also misbehave, don’t we all, whether we are children or adults, it’s part of growing up, and part of life. But like I said, it’s once in a blue moon, not every minute of the day.
Being seriously ill makes you think about these sorts of things, because you think about what is important and what’s not. I wonder if those children, who don’t care and don’t behave, all had cancer one day, like me. Would it change them? For all you children, food is not just vital, you love good food, think about all those things you love to eat: chocolate, cheeseburgers, fries, sweets, cakes, sausages, roast dinner, and loads of other things. But imagine several days of not being able to put anything, even a drop of water, in your mouth. When you have to have so many operations and medicines, you just can’t keep anything down. While in hospital, I would go to the canteen and watch people eating, but not be able to eat anything myself. Just think if you were that person dying for something to eat and all you can think about is food, but you have to fast for so many hours. Since I couldn’t eat much, I was fitted with a tube up my nose (sounds horrible but you have to have what you need or die). It was a little machine fitted with a glass bottle which gave me everything I needed for nourishment. All that time I couldn’t eat like a normal child, made me fussy about my food; now I know what I am safe with and what I like. I have sausages every night! Parents may seem unfair or not let you do things you want, but they will always help you. They feed you, they clothe you and they give you a home, but most of all they help you when you are hurt. My mum and dad sat with me day after day in the hospital, and watched me being pulled about, having all kinds of medical treatment I couldn’t stand. I know first hand what parents go through when they see their child in pain. I’m sure that when I was diagnosed with the brain tumour, they thought I would not get through it. Can you imagine if your parents thought you were going to die?
Now you have heard from a real life cancer survivor, I hope my story has shocked you in some way into thinking about your own lives. Here I am a normal child but one who has had an awful journey in the start of his childhood. But I have also had something positive from it all in that I am more serious and thoughtful about life. It makes me behave better at school and work harder. Cancer has made me take a step back and look through the window of life at what is ahead of me.
