13: Every Cherry Has a Pit

13

Every Cherry Has a Pit

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

5:35 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          It’s going to take some time before I calm down. It may not seem like much a year or two from now, but losing a tooth for something as accidental as biting into a cherry pit has really got me worked up. It’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.

          What really hurts is that I asked you to accompany me to my dentist appointment, hoping you would work a miracle and let me walk out of the dentist’s office with my dignity intact; but no, I lost a tooth that’s so obvious I’ve stopped smiling.

          I have to get a partial plate because we can’t afford the expense of an implant or bridgework (four to five thousand dollars for an implant, and three thousand for bridgework). Maybe down the road, if one of my novels connects with the public and we can afford such luxuries as proper dental care, I will get bridgework done; but for now I have to get a partial plate because I have to salvage my dignity somehow.

          And to think that a little thing like a cherry pit could cause so much personal devastation? Talk about a journey through vanity to humility! That damn cherry pit has initiated a chain of events that I could have done without, and I have to ask why?

          When Penny and I went out for a Tim Hortons coffee last night I thought of Jesus cursing the barren fig tree. “That damn cherry pit!” I exploded. “I’m not going to attend any more classes at that woman’s house!”

          I don’t know why yet, but I cannot go back to the house where I bit into the cherry pit after one of our Spiritual Discourse classes. I can’t make the connection yet, Padre; but there’s a message in the barren fig tree and the little bowl of cherries that the woman who hosted the classes put out for after-class fellowship.

I don’t want to give up our classes, but I’m so angry at the loss of my tooth that I just can’t bring myself to go back to that woman’s house; and it’s not simply a matter of vanity. It’s much deeper than that. I can’t put my finger on it, but it has to do with the clash of my energies and “old whore life.” I rankle the “old whore,” and she stirs up karma!

It has puzzled the world why Jesus cursed the fig tree, but I think I understand why Jesus did it. I think he could see “old whore life”—those negative forces that resisted him every step of the way—and that day he had enough and cursed the barren fig tree. “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever,” said Jesus (Math. 21: 19).

That’s how I feel about the cherry pit that cracked my tooth and given me so much aggravation that I cursed the cherry pit like Jesus cursed the barren fig tree. It may be a preposterous comparison, but I don’t think so. There’s a connection between the barren fig tree that could not nourish Jesus when he was hungry and the cherry pit that caused me so much aggravation, and I think the connection has to do with how my energies clash with energies of “old whore life.” But that’s too deep to ponder now.

“Thank you, Padre!” I lashed out at you when I came out of the dentist’s office Friday afternoon—as if you had anything to do with my cracked tooth!

 Or did you? Was Spirit orchestrating the next chapter of my life? Was Spirit telling me that I bit too hard on life with my spiritual musings on “old whore life” and struck a nerve—like I did when I bit too hard on the cherry pit and struck a nerve? Have I seen through life’s bowl of cherries and gone straight to the pits of life?

The saying “life is a bowl of cherries” has taken on a whole new meaning for me, because I know now that every cherry has a pit, which is what my spiritual musings on “old whore life” are all about—the cherry pits of life!

What gets me is how innocent it was. When I told my dentist what happened to my tooth, he said, “Life is full of surprises,” and was I surprised when it happened!

 We were having fellowship after our Spiritual Discourse class. I placed three cherries onto my plate along with a piece of cinnamon cake, and after I ate the cherries I picked up the piece of cake and took a bite, but I hadn’t noticed that a cherry pit had stuck to the bottom of the cake and I bit into it and yelped in pain when it struck a nerve.

I didn’t know I had cracked my tooth, so I didn’t go to the dentist right away. I thought the pain would eventually go away, but after two weeks of chewing on the right side of my mouth I went to the dentist and learned that my tooth couldn’t be saved.

So what’s the karmic lesson? Is there a price to pay for the cake we eat? Is this what it means when we say that we can’t have our cake and eat it too? We all know that nothing is for nothing in this world, so what’s the lesson, Padre?

Life may very well be a bowl of cherries, but every cherry has a pit!

I really don’t have much more to say. I’m in a real funk, and I don’t know when I’m going to get out of it. It may take a few days, weeks, or months; but I had to write this letter because I just had to vent. Thanks for listening.

I remain,

Still not a happy camper,

Orest