With each swing of his hammer, a blacksmith hits precisely where he wants. It is an art nearly as old as history and profound for being so rudimentary. A smith begins with a lump of raw, black iron. With fire and the strength of the arm, he pounds that iron into something beautiful. One day, as he was going about his routine, blacksmithing came to the mind of St. Anthony. He was a hermit who lived in the desert. Some pilgrims were with him and asked for advice about the spiritual life. The hermit responded with this illustration:
“Whoever hammers a lump of iron, first decides what he is going to make of it, a scythe, a sword, or an axe. Even so we ought to make up our minds what kind of virtue we want to forge or we labor in vain.”
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