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Rumi was sitting on her favorite bench high up on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  She would sit and watch the waves below crash against the shore.  The sound of the crashing waves became almost like a meditation for her.  Whenever she sat alone, invariably someone would always come and join her.  It was her presence that drew them to her.

On this day, a very old man approached her and sat down with her.  It wasn’t long before he began talking with Rumi.

“Fear sometimes creeps into my heart in the middle of the night,” he said.  It’s irrational, he knew, but it was there, nonetheless.  The fear haunted him at night, he explained to her.

“My wife thinks I am strong, but deep down I am scared,” he said.

“What does your fear say to you?” Rumi asked.

“I don’t have enough money.”

“Where will we live if we go broke?”

“How will we eat?”

“What happens if my health fails?  Or my family’s health?”

“Who will take care of us?”

“The world is going mad.”

The list was long, he told her.  The chorus was often there, and the essential tone of the musings was always the same.  Fear.  Specifically, fear of the future.  Intellectually, he knew that he had no control over the future and whenever fear arose, he understood that surrender was the only answer to coping with his imagination.  In theory, this was wonderful, he thought.  In practice, it is a master’s class in consciousness he told her.

Rumi listened as the man talked.

His fear manifested mostly in the middle of the night, he confessed to her, and each time it did he would become paralyzed by it.

“Replace your fear with gratitude,” Rumi said without a hint of condemnation.

“How?” he asked.

“Tell me one of your fears?”

“I don’t have enough money,” he said worriedly.  “I only have two gold coins.”

“Be thankful for the two gold coins you have.  It could be one coin…or none.”

The man thought about this for a moment, considered it and then dismissed it.

“These two coins will be gone soon and then it may very well be zero,” the man countered.

“Yes, that could very well be true and when that happens be grateful that you don’t owe someone two coins,” Rumi said.

“One day that may happen too.  Should I be grateful for that as well?”

Rumi paused a moment and said, “If you knew tomorrow that the only things that would be in your life were that which you were grateful for today, what would you give thanks for?”

The man thought about this for a long moment.  Something stirred deep within his soul, and he decided he would give thanks today for all the things that he desired and needed in his life tomorrow.  He left Rumi and went home and that night he gave thanks for everything in his life he was grateful for.

When he woke up in the morning, he walked to his water well to get a bucket of water.  He put the bucket down the well and when he pulled it back to the surface, he discovered the well had gone dry.  He instantly became incensed.  He thought to himself, I spent the entire evening last night giving thanks for all that I had, and I awakened to a dry well.  It’s a pleasant thought to think that by being grateful we can bring abundance in our life, but it doesn’t really work.

The man returned to Rumi who was once again sitting on her bench.  He sat beside her and told her his story.  He went home, expressed gratitude all evening and when he awoke, he discovered his water well had gone dry.

“Your advice certainly didn’t work for me,” he lamented.

“Did you give thanks for the water in your well last night?” Rumi asked.

“Well, no, I didn’t think to.  The water is always in the well,” the man said.

“If you knew that tomorrow you would only have what you gave thanks for today, what would you be grateful for in this moment?”

The man paused.

“I would certainly be grateful for water in my well.”

“Give thanks for the water in your well,” Rumi said.

The man sat silently for a moment, and he began giving thanks for the water in the well.  He pictured in his mind the well filled with fresh water.  He held the feeling of having an abundance of water in his entire being while the worry of not having water disappeared.  When the man opened his eyes, he looked at Rumi and thanked her.

“You are a wise young lady,” the man said as he took leave of Rumi.

The man returned to his home and when he arrived, he immediately went out to the well only to discover that the well was still dry.  He became frustrated that he had pictured well filled with water yet when he tried to get some it was still dry.

I spent all that time giving thanks and still no water, he thought.  The man went back inside his house, and he noticed on his kitchen table was a carafe filled with water.  The man said to his wife, “Where did you get this water?  The well is dry.”

His wife explained that after he left for his morning walk, she walked to the well to get water and when she saw that it was dry, she went to a neighbor’s house and told her of their predicament.  The neighbor mentioned to the woman that it just so happened that her husband was a well digger by occupation, and he would be happy to help dig another well so that they could have water soon.  In the meantime, she said that they had plenty of water in their well and there would be more than enough for both families until the new well was completed.

The man listened to the story, and he began to understand that all his worrying did nothing to solve the problem.  The problem seemed to solve itself without any effort on his part.

The next day the man returned to Rumi and told her the whole story.  Rumi listened patiently as the man explained how he became frustrated and lost faith only to discover that his dilemma had been solved without him doing anything.  When the man finished, she said, “God seldom provides in the way we think He will; but He always provides; that is, if we give thanks in advance.”

The man reached in his pocket, and he removed one of his two remaining gold coins.

“I want you to have this,” he said.  “This is my way of thanking you for showing me a new way to live.  I am grateful that I have two gold coins so that I can give one to you.  I am also thankful that now I have only one gold coin.”

Rumi took the coin, smiled, said thank you and then said to the man:

“Yesterday, I gave thanks because I didn’t have any money.  I gave thanks because I knew God wanted me to see what it felt like to not have money.  Today, God is allowing me to experience what it feels like to have money.  Both are just experiences, and they aren’t personal.”

The man sat and listened.  Rumi rose from the bench to leave and left the man with one final thought

“Tonight, I would go home and give thanks for your neighbor.  They heard God’s call that you needed help and they answered.”

Rumi began strolling away.  As she walked away, the man watched her and he gave thanks for Rumi; hoping he would see her tomorrow.

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