title: Wheat & Weeds and the Wolf of Gubbio: Prayers and Stories
author: Graziano Marchesi
description: <b>Graziano Marcheschi, M.A., M.Div.</b>, is the Director of the Lay Ministry Formation Program for the Archdiocese of Chicago and Director of the Anawim Players, a Liturgical Performing Arts Company.
zlib_text: PROLOGUE
  In this village, when the ripened ears of wheat sway in the breeze, it
  is said that a wolf runs through them.
  This is because one can make out the form of a running wolf in the
  shifting stalks of the wheat fields.
  When the wind is too strong and the stalks are blown over, it is said
  that the wolf has trampled them. When the harvest is poor, it is said
  that the wolf has eaten it.
  It was a nice turn of phrase, but it had a troublesome aspect that
  flawed it, she felt.
  Still, lately it was a popular sort of expression, and there were few
  remaining who wielded it with the sort of familiarity or awe it had
  held in the past.
  Although the autumn sky that was visible between the swaying
  stalks of wheat had not changed in hundreds of years, conditions
  below that sky had indeed changed.
  The villagers who tended the wheat as the years passed lived for
  seventy years at the most.
  Perhaps it would be worse for them to go centuries without
  changing.
  Maybe that is why there is no need for them