Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Another parable...

I'm consolidating things to this blog. So another parable...

Once upon a time there was an Indian who learned things from the shaman.

Now, he found himself disagreeing with the shaman about some things. He thought, "This just does not seem right to me. It does not match what I know." So he argued about the totem poles and which animals where in it and the why and how of how things were done in the tribe. Now the shaman became tired of this for he was uninterested in it. All he wantedto do was to say, "Dancing about the fire and having sex with women. This is good. Now smoke peace pipe..."

But the Indian did not listen, instead he went into the wilderness and up a mountain. He went up and up. He came to a cave. He looked down and saw his tribe. He stayed there a long time. It seemed that when he needed food some birds sometimes came and dropped berries.He did not need very much though. He was thinking, thinking through things. Then he found what seemed to have been leading him along all the time. So this is why he disagreed with the shaman! So he went back down and began telling his tribe about the Great Spirit that he found...or did He find him? A few listened, most did not....and eventually the story came to be changed some, lost a little and some believed in another sky god instead.

But at the end of his life this sage actually heard the truth, in his own mind. He had the ears to hear. And he said, "Ah, He is good!"

Now, at this same time there lived in England another man. He heard the truth every Sunday in church. Other than that he went to dance halls and had sex with prostitutes. He sometimes mumbled,"Forgive me...mercy and grace, mercy and grace..." just as hehad been taught. He thought he was a nice guy. He wondered why the prostitutes cried sometimes though, after they though the was asleep. Eventually, he quit going to church altogether. He thought, "Well, the Lord forgives." He drank too much and ate too much. He came to be diseased from this eventually. As he lay on the hospital bed dying from his diseases he said, "Jesus is Lord..."

He did not hear an answer. He had never wanted to.

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