RE: Fifty-word short story challenge - "water"
I enjoyed your piece--because of course nothing stays the same. And, as you wrote in another piece, we wouldn't want it to. I think recognizing this helps us more looking into the future than at the past. If we understand that we are constantly evolving we might plot our path more deliberately, try to choose our influences more carefully. I don't know, maybe that's an illusion of control.
Anyway, as for your explanation--I'm afraid I don't necessarily trust people because of their chosen vocation or their station. I think sometimes people have strange motives for leading abstemious lives. I look to scandals of "religious" people and think how they used their conspicuous piety as a cover.
Anyway, interesting. Glad to see you writing, writing, writing. I can't keep up. I'm a plodder :)
For me, the question is and was very important in this context. I wanted to know: Who can I trust almost unconditionally without having to know his life, his reputation, his career, his financial and emotional status? Are there people who are accessible to me and can I assume that, in principle, they do not contravene a serious life path and an official and voluntary commitment to ethical principles? The ordained were the only ones who remained. The fact that I did not select them from the Christian realm is also logical for me, because in our own ranks we indeed do not see and saw our trust justified.
Scandals are like a bundled beam of light pointing only to a certain place. If one were to illuminate the entire spectrum, I suspect, many positive qualities and teachings would be visible in addition to the scandals and misconduct, which unfortunately often remain hidden from us because we have become accustomed to the spotlight.
To the deeper sense of your comment, read my newest article, I think you might find it interesting:
https://steemit.com/buddhism/@erh.germany/monastics-a-bunch-of-outcasts-seekers-and-losers-what-can-a-monastery-be-regarded-as-what-does-it-serve-for
I have plenty of time to write. It belongs like breathing to my everyday life:)