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Rest for a Soaring Eagle They say that when John was an old man someone gave him a beautiful bird as a gift. He loved watching the bird and holding it in his hand. Knowing what he was thinking, John called the young man, who always carried a bow and arrow with him. "How do you use that bow?" John asked the young man. The youth pulled hard on the bowstring and then immediately released it. "Why do you let go of the string so quickly?" John asked. "Because if I held it too long, I would have no strength to launch the arrows," came the reply. "Isn't it true also," John said, "that we cannot be doing or thinking all the time. Sometimes we need play. You know, the eagle is a bird that flies high and looks straight into the sun. But it comes back to rest on the earth. So our spirits must enjoy these little things of earth in order to search into the mysterious heavens again." Through King Edward the Confessor, who had great devotion to St.John, devotion to the apostle called "the Divine" became a mark of the English church. The feast day of Saint John is December 27.
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One
of his young followers, thinking that John was wasting his time and
had better things to do, said to a companion: "Look at the old man playing
with that bird like a child."
