Weekly Short Story: The Three Hermits by Leo Tolstoy

I found the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy's 1886 short story The Three Hermits in an anthology designed for Russian language students: Russian Stories Русские Рассказы: A Dual-Language Book (1961, Dover Publications)...you can read it for yourself through the following link to the Online-Literature website: [link].  I suggest that you first do this, for this article will discuss the story's ending, something I usually don't do because I don't like playing the spoiler...

A church bishop traveling to a distant monastery learns of three elderly hermits living on an small uncharted island off the northern coast of Russia and insists to his ship's captain that he be allowed to visit them.  The captain sends him out to the island on a boat and waits...the Bishop meets the hermits and hears that they take care of each other, are generous and hospitable to visitors, and are seeking salvation and mercy...but do not know how to pray to God.  So he painstakenly sets out to teach them the Lord's Prayer...they stumble and forget, but after several hours he is satisfied that they have learned it.  He returns to the ship and they continue on their voyage.  But a little while later they see something quickly approaching on the water from where they were...it is the three hermits speeding...gliding...on the watertop toward them!  Upon reaching the Bishop, all three exclaim in alarmed unison that they had already forgotten parts of  the Lord's Prayer and would he please help them relearn it...the astonished Bishop calls them men of God and says that it is not for him to teach them...and for them to please "pray for us sinners"...

Book learning, formal training, and doctrine are useful things in a field...but Tolstoy (and I) would make the important distinction that one's heart takes precedence over all.  Knowing and repeating the "right" words to say to God is nothing better than a magically-intended incantation if there is no heartfelt spirit behind it, while a contrite, humble soul grounded in love for God and others will fare much better.  But that's my religious take on this overtly religious story: there is, I believe a broader application here...

I cannot begin to count the different times I have been in situations where I was captivated by what was around me, be it a spectacularly clear night sky full of stars, listening to a beautiful piece of music, riding a convoluted, looping, speeding roller coaster, running a very long distance along winding roads and paths, hunched over a radio trying to pick up distant stations, exploring the basics and intricacies of a foreign language, and so on.  There is that primal level of enthusiasm about a subject that I am always searching to tap and experience, but when I find other so-called "like-minded" people to relate with, I inevitably come across skeptical, nit-picking, correcting...and sometimes even demeaning responses...as if we're in some sort of competition with each other because of our common interest and they seem to feel the need to put me in my "place".  Like the three hermits, I don't seem to come across as being an "expert" in many areas that I maintain a high level of interest and enthusiasm for...it would be a refreshing change if the people I encounter who shared my interests were more "incompetent" like myself (and the three hermits) and less like the pedantic, "correct" Bishop in Tolstoy's tale...