{"id":87,"date":"2010-03-10T16:06:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T00:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/?p=87"},"modified":"2010-10-21T17:46:43","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T00:46:43","slug":"a-desert-father-for-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/a-desert-father-for-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"A Desert Father for Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"wpsdc-drop-cap\">O<\/span>ne day Abba Arsenius consulted an old Egyptian monk about his own thoughts. <\/p>\n<p>Someone noticed this and said to him, &#8220;Abba Arsenius, how is it that you with such a good Latin and Greek education, ask this peasant about your thoughts?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He replied, &#8220;I have indeed been taught Latin and Greek, but I do not know even the alphabet of this peasant.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One day Abba Arsenius consulted an old Egyptian monk about his own thoughts. Someone noticed this and said to him, &#8220;Abba Arsenius, how is it that you with such a good Latin and Greek education, ask this peasant about your thoughts?&#8221; He replied, &#8220;I have indeed been taught Latin and Greek, but I do not know even the alphabet of [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wisdom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1aGBK-1p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6552,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/silence-prayer-work\/","url_meta":{"origin":87,"position":0},"title":"Silence. Prayer. Work.","author":"Thom","date":"19 July 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Both of my readers will recall that I often reread the Desert Fathers during Lent. Today is the feast day of one of them, Saint Arsenius. He was a wealthy, educated man who gave up everything to worship God in the desert. Quite a contrast with yesterday's feast of Saint\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Meditations&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Meditations","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/meditations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":105531,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/pentecost-2020\/","url_meta":{"origin":87,"position":1},"title":"Pentecost: &#8220;You Can Become All Flame&#8221;","author":"Thom","date":"31 May 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"read today in the Acts of the Apostles of this great day, which in a certain way we can celebrate as the birthday of the Church: the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,they were all in one place together.And suddenly there came from the skya noise like a strong driving wind,and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Annual&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Annual","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/annual\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/pentecost-titian2.jpg?fit=528%2C759&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/pentecost-titian2.jpg?fit=528%2C759&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/pentecost-titian2.jpg?fit=528%2C759&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":107833,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/pentecost-2023\/","url_meta":{"origin":87,"position":2},"title":"Pentecost: Fire and Mission","author":"Thom","date":"28 May 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"read today in the Acts of the Apostles of this great day, which in a certain way we can celebrate as the birthday of the Church: the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,they were all in one place together.And suddenly there came from the skya noise like a strong driving wind,and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Annual&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Annual","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/annual\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Pentecost-Duccio.jpg?fit=485%2C427&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":422,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/the-tao-of-the-word\/","url_meta":{"origin":87,"position":3},"title":"The Tao of the Word","author":"Thom","date":"18 March 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"During Lent, I am reading the Desert Fathers. On occasion I will post sayings that strike me during my Lectio. This particular passage strongly reminds me of Tao Te Ching. Abba John, who had been exiled by the emperor Marcian, said: We went to Syria one day to see Abba\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Wisdom&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Wisdom","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/wisdom\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":107656,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/i-am-still-abba-lot-2023\/","url_meta":{"origin":87,"position":4},"title":"I am still Abba Lot","author":"Thom","date":"07 March 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I am often reminded of this, one of my favourite stories from the Desert Fathers: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, \"Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Annual&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Annual","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/annual\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Abba-Lot.jpg?fit=782%2C1128&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Abba-Lot.jpg?fit=782%2C1128&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Abba-Lot.jpg?fit=782%2C1128&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Abba-Lot.jpg?fit=782%2C1128&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":105234,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/i-am-still-abba-lot-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":87,"position":5},"title":"I am still Abba Lot","author":"Thom","date":"05 March 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I am often reminded of this, one of my favourite stories from the Desert Fathers: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, \"Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Annual&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Annual","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/annual\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Abba-Lot.jpg?fit=782%2C1128&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Abba-Lot.jpg?fit=782%2C1128&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Abba-Lot.jpg?fit=782%2C1128&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Abba-Lot.jpg?fit=782%2C1128&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}