Birth pangs: Sometimes you cannot give help
In the absence of a real, live spiritual director, I often turn to the Desert Fathers for wisdom about living a holy life on earth. My farm is no desert, but enough happens here for me to understand St. Anthony’s reply to the philosopher who asked him how he could be happy without books. “My book is the nature of created things,” Anthony said to him, “and any time I want to read the words of God, the book is before me.”