Today’s meditation is admittedly long, but it’s absolutely amazing. Written by Hugh of Saint Victor (c. 1096-1141) a leading theologian who shined despite the darkness of the ages in which he lived. This “conversation” between “Reason” noted as “R” and the “Soul” noted as “S” comes from De Vanitate Mundi (Noah’s Ark: III, Book 1, Section 3).
When you read through it, picture yourself as the “Soul” conversing with God as “Reason”. I found this “conversation” while researching to prepare a sermon I am delivering in Korea next month on “The Rich Fool” in Luke 12:13-21. Hugh would say the rich man listened to his “Soul” (as the text notes) instead of “Reason” and we know what mess that got him in. What about you? Will you listen to Reason?
R. Turn yet again, and look at something else.
S. I have turned, and I am looking.
R. What do you see?
S. I see a rich man’s home.
R. What do you see there?
S. I see an abundance of everything, children growing up, efficient servants, fertile flocks, full barns, storehouses overflowing, health in life, peace in plenty, safety in peace, and happiness in safety.
R. How does it strike you?
S. I see no reason here for grief or fear, yet after the lesson of the previous cases I would not be so rash now as to say that anybody was secure of happiness. I should rather hear from you what I should think.
R. Do you then believe that such a man is happy?
S. I cannot see why not.
R. Which, then, makes a man the happier, to possess much, or to need little?
S. Needing little makes him happier than possessing much.
R. So it is a still happier condition to need little?
S. Clearly.
R. A man is to be reckoned happy, then, not when he possesses much, but when he does not need much.
S. Yet people say a man is happy if he has sufficient means to meet all demands. For they know from experience how depressed a man becomes, if in time of need he is restricted by lack of property.
R. Had you but compared the troubles of the rich with those of the poor, you would realize that the rich man is more unfortunate than the poor. For the more a rich man possesses, the more worry he has. And, above all, because he has to bear the burden of anxiety alone, that which he acquires so eagerly and hoards so carefully is of more benefit to other people than it is to himself. In the fever of his anxiety he tosses unceasingly. He fears the failure of his revenues, for, though his property is great, no less so are the forces at work to dissipate it. He fears the violence of the mighty, doubts the honesty of his own household, lives in perpetual fear of the deceptions of strangers, and, since he knows himself hated by everyone because of his possessions, he tries to avert this by a wretched and unhappy sort of struggle against everyone. And so it comes about that, in cutting himself off from the common fellowship of everyone by this depraved pursuit, he becomes hateful to all men, and a stranger to their love. Moreover, he knows quite well that, if his material prosperity should fail him, he will receive no kindly compassion from anybody else. The worry of his property never leaves him, but the enjoyment of it goes to other people to such an extent that he is often obliged to be generous to those from whom he cannot expect to receive respect, or thanks, or service. As long as he keeps it, they speak ill of him; when he gives it away, they mock him with empty adulation, though he is hurt no less by being laughed at than by being cursed. Always morose, always unhappy, always apprehensive, always weighed down by present cares and troubled by fears for the future, he cannot trust the good fortune that he has, but lives in constant fear of evils that may come. I ask you, then, what real comfort or pleasure can the body have, when the mind is beset with such strains and stresses ? What consolation will not be turned into an affliction for the body, when the spirit is wounded by such stings? This is the happiness of the rich man, which you, noticing only its false, superficial advantages, were disposed to extol, because you did not see the real unhappiness within.
S. If this is how things go with a rich man, he who desires great possessions is his own enemy.