A bishop sailing across the sea heard of three hermits living on a remote island. He went ashore and asked how they prayed.
Their prayer was simple: there were three of them and three in God, and they asked for mercy. The bishop told them this was not the proper form. He spent the day teaching them the Lord’s Prayer word by word, repeating it until they could recite it without help.
That night, after the ship had sailed away, the passengers saw a light moving over the water. The three hermits were running across the sea to catch them.
They had forgotten the bishop’s prayer and asked him to teach it again.
The bishop bowed. Their own prayer, he said, already reached God; it was not his place to teach them.
Source: Leo Tolstoy, “The Three Hermits,” in Master and Man and Other Stories, PDF pp. 211-217. Retold and condensed.
What it argues
Expertise becomes foolish when it mistakes correct form for the reality the form is meant to serve. The bishop knows more words; the hermits understand the purpose.
Use it for: credentialism, ritual, religious humility, and experts learning from practitioners.