This week I am going to spoil you with two stories:

Socrates, the famous Greek philosopher and intellectual leader of his time, attracted many followers. One young man once said to him, “Oh great Socrates, I come to you to find great knowledge.” Socrates led him to the sea, waded in until they were waist deep in water and said to the young man, “Tell me again what you want?” “I want knowledge,” replied the young
man. Socrates pushed him under the water and held him there for about thirty seconds. “Now tell me what you want? The young man spluttered, “Oh great teacher I am looking for wisdom.” Again he was pushed under the water, for longer this time. “Now what do you really want?” The young man coughed and gasped out, “Air I want air, I can’t breathe.” Socrates smiled and said, “When you want to find knowledge and wisdom as much as the air we breathe, then you will indeed be a wise man.

Our second story concerns a drunk, who on his way home from the pub stumbles across a group of people having a baptism service by a small river. The preacher sees the drunken man on the river bank and asks him, “Would you like to find Jesus?” The drunken man replies in a slurred voice, “Of course I would.” The preacher leads him into the river, dunks him under the water, pulls him back up and asks, “Have you found Jesus.” “No I haven’t,” replies the man.
The preacher then pushes him under the water for even longer and the drunk comes up half drowned, coughing and spluttering and the preacher asks, “Have you found Jesus yet?” The drunk shakes his head to clear his eyes of water, looks quizzically at the preacher and asks him, “No! but are you quite sure this is where he fell in?”

So what is the connection between these two stories, apart from water?

Well, both the characters are looking to find something, the young man knowledge and wisdom, the drunken man anything he can find. But at the end of the day they both find out that the most important thing of all, is life itself.....