pay attention to yourself!

Many hundreds of years ago, Abba John of Beersheba asked a younger friend to do something and it had not been done quickly enough to satisfy him.  He duly reprimanded his friend, who then became upset at the rebuke.

Frustrated by this response, Abba John wrote a letter to Barsanuphius, “The Great Old Man,” expressing his irritation and adding that he was fed up and would never say anything to anybody again!

In his first response to John, Barsanuphius was gentle and indirect.  "This generation is soft and delicate; you will find it hard to discover a man with a tough heart."

John caught the quiet reproach and moved to blunt it by readily admitting that he was the architect of most of his troubles.  "I know, father that these things happen to me because of my sins,” he wrote to Barsanuphius, "and that I am a fool and all my troubles are my own fault."  

But Barsanuphius saw right through him.  "You call yourself a sinner and yet you do not believe this, judging from what you do," he fired back. "A man who holds that he is a sinner and the cause of his own troubles does not go around contradicting people and getting angry with them."  

The Great Old Man concluded his letter to Abba John with the classic monastic admonition.  "Pay attention to yourself, brother — this is not the truth."