Chasing Moons February

Light and Dark I was out walking one day when a large dark ominous looking cloud filled the sky above me. My mind was almost instantly turned to thoughts of light and dark.  It has so many connotations this little saying and how we talk about those living in darkness and those having seen the light. I do not want to go into the theology of this, even though my mind did venture down that road that day. I also did think about the idea of lights and the part they play in most religions in one way or another. It is of course always wise to make any decisions having first considered the decision to be made and to make it in the full light of all the facts.   Making decisions in the dark can lead to some regrettable consequences.  Back in the days before electricity, a tight-fisted old farmer was taking his hired man to task for carrying a lighted lantern when he went to call on his best girl.  "Why," he exclaimed, "when I went a-courting ...

Look Not all tales need to be from the distant past because we all make our own tales as we move through life. One such incident was when my son began to learn reading and writing. The first word he learned was the word, “Look”. This word began appearing on every bit of spare paper. Then one Sunday morning I arrived home from conducting an early morning service at the prison. One morning arriving home from an early morning service in the prison I saw emblazoned on the church wall in bright chalk the words, "Look, God." He had learned another word and was happy to let the whole congregation know. As members arrived for Sunday worship, they could all read these words. I often wondered what they thought he meant. Some weeks later my study was being decorated. New wallpaper was being hung to brighten the place. I arrived and I was met at the door by my daughter. “Dad you are not going to like what Ross has done now.” When I asked what he had been up...

How Much Land do we Need? There once lived a farmer who owned a good amount of land and this made him fairly wealthy. But he was never happy with what he had; he was always looking for just a little bit more. One day he received an offer that he could not turn down, for 1000 rubbles he could have all the land that he could walk around in one day. The only catch in the deal was that having set out to walk at daybreak he had to be back at his starting point before sunset. He was a fit man and took up the challenge. Early the next day he set off at a very fast pace. By midday, he had covered a good amount of land, he was very tired, but he kept on walking covering more and more ground. Well into the afternoon he began to realise that time was running short and he was a long way from his starting point.  He quickened his pace almost to running speed but still, his starting point seemed a long way off. As the sun began to set, he once more picked up his ...

We Are What We Say I have often heard it being said that a little lie never does any harm.   This reminded me of the story of the man and his two sons. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and a father was taking his two little boys to play miniature golf. He walked up to the gentleman at the ticket counter and said, "How much is it to play?" The man replied, "£1.00 for you and £1.00 for any child who is older than six. Children are admitted free if they are six or younger. How old are they?" The father replied, "The lawyer's three and the doctor is seven, so I guess I owe you £2.00." The man at the ticket counter said, "Hey, Mister, did you just win the lottery or something? You could have saved yourself £1. You could have told me that the older one was six; I wouldn't have known the difference."  The father thought then replied, "Yes, that may be true, but my children would have known the difference." A...

Echoes A young boy was walking with his father in a deep mountain glen. Not paying proper attention to where he was walking, he tripped and fell letting out a yell of pain, "AAAhhhhhh!" To his surprise, he heard his call repeated from the mountain. "AAAhhhhhhhh!" "Curious, he yells: "Who are you?" 
 He receives the answer: "Who are you?" 
 Then he screams to the mountain: "I admire you!" 
  The voice answers: "I admire you!" 
 Angered at the response, he screams: "Coward!" 
  He receives the answer: "Coward!" He looks to his father and asks: "What's going on? " 
 The father smiles and says: "My son, pay attention." 
   This time the man screams: "You are a champion!" 
  The voice answers: "You are a champion!" 
 The boy is surprised but still, he does not understand. Then the father explains: "People call this ECHO, but really ...

Beware of the Inner Wolves. A young lad arrived home from school full of anger.  One of the other boys in his class had done something to upset him. He had felt like hitting out at the other boy but at the last minute had remembered that his grandfather had told him such actions solved little. Instead on his way home from school he had gone to visit his Grandfather and told him about it.  His grandfather sat him down and said to him, "Let me tell you something. I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do. But hate wears you down and does not hurt your enemy.  It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times. It is as if there are two wolves inside me; one is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him and does not take offence when no offence was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so and in the right wa...

Start Again and do Better. Many years ago there lived a young student artist named Timanthes. He studied under a respected tutor.  After several years the teacher's efforts seemed to have paid off when Timanthes painted an exquisite work of art.  Sadly he became so proud of this painting he spent his days sitting looking at it captivated by his work.  One morning when he arrived to admire his work and was shocked to find it covered in splashes of paint. Angry, Timanthes ran to his teacher, who admitted he had destroyed the painting. "I did it for your own good. That painting was holding back your progress.  Start again and see if you can do better."  Timanthes took his teacher's advice and produced  the Sacrifice  of Iphigenia, which is regarded as one of the finest paintings of antiquity. The Greeks had a race in their Olympic games that was unique. The winner was not the runner who finished first. It was the runner who finished with hi...

The Old Sailor An old sailor repeatedly got lost at sea, so his friends purchased and gave him a compass and urged him to use it.  The next time he went out in his boat, he followed their advice and took the compass with him. But as usual, he became hopelessly confused and was unable to find land.  Once again he was rescued by his friends.   Disgusted and impatient with him, they asked, "Why didn't you use that compass we gave you? You could have saved us a lot of trouble!"  The sailor responded, "I didn't dare to! I wanted to go north, but as hard as I tried to make the needle aim in that direction, it just kept on pointing southeast."   The old sailor was so certain he knew which was north that he stubbornly tried to force his own personal persuasion on his compass.  Unable to do so, he tossed it aside as worthless and failed to benefit from the guidance it offered. So often the actions of others can bring about their own isol...

The Man for the Job Miss Ross, a dear old lady always visited the local post office in her village because the postal employees there were friendly. She went some weeks to buy stamps even when she had no letters to post.  One day she went there and the lines were particularly long. Someone pointed out that there was no need to wait in line because there was a stamp machine by the door. "I know," said Miss Ross, "but the machine won't ask me about my arthritis."  Dwight Morrow, the father of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, once held a dinner party to which Calvin Coolidge had been invited.  After Coolidge left, Morrow told the remaining guests that Coolidge would make a good president.  The others disagreed. They felt Coolidge was too quiet, that he lacked colour and personality. No one would like him, they said.  The young daughter of the family, Anne, then aged six, spoke up, "I like him," she said. Then she displayed a finger with a small banda...

The Human Automobile We all have days when we feel staying in bed might be a good thing. Those days when you feel sure things are just not going to go the way you want them to. The older we get the more frequently this is the case. We are a bit like a vintage car. As it gets older, the differential starts slipping, and the u-joints get worn, causing the drive shaft to go bad. The transmission will not go into high gear and sometimes has difficulty getting out of low. The cylinders get worn and lose compression, making it hard to climb the slightest incline. When it is climbing, the tappets clatter and ping to the point where one wonders if the old bus will make it to the top.  The  carburettor  gets fouled with pollutants and other matter, making it hard to get started in the morning. It is hard to keep the radiator filled because of the leaking hose. The thermostat goes out, making it difficult to reach operating temperature. The headlights grow dim, and t...

Rain Dancing. The native American Indians believed that it was possible to influence the weather. When they had a long dry period without rain, they would gather around the campfire and perform a rain dance. There must have been times when it did rain after such events or they would have given up a long time ago. Back in 1839, James Espy claimed that rain could easily be produced by heating the air. But his plan to saturate parched farmland by building great log fires across vast stretches of the American West never materialised. There is no scientific evidence that suggests it would have worked even if he had. Later in the 19th century, a new theory emerged, loud noises would bring rain. This theory was put to the test in Texas, where Robert Dyrenforth piled up enough munitions for a small war. He blasted away at the skies, but as one observer wrote, "He attacked from the front and rear, by the right and left flank. But the sky remained clear as the complexion of a Sa...

Buried Treasure A miser had buried his gold in a secret place in his garden. Every day he went to the spot, dug up the treasure and counted it piece by piece to make sure it was all there. He made so many trips that a thief, who had been observing him, guessed what it was the miser had hidden, and one night quietly dug up the treasure and made off with it. When the miser made his next visit to his hiding place and discovered his loss, he was overcome with grief. He groaned and cried and tore at his hair. A friend who lived nearby heard his wailing and groaning and went to see what was up. He asked the miser what was wrong, and could he help. " My gold, all my gold!" he cried, "Somebody has robbed me of all my gold." The neighbour on hearing this pointed to the hole in the ground, "Did you bury your gold in there?" he asked. "Why did you not keep it in the house where you could easily get to it when you needed to purchase things...

Building for Sale  There was a notice on the front of an old building telling all who passed that the property was for sale. The owner had decided it was time to retire and sell up. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and strewn rubbish and litter around the interior. As he showed a prospective buyer the property, the owner took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the rubbish.  "Forget about the repairs," the buyer said. "When I buy this place, I'm going to build something completely different. I don't want the building; I want the site."  How often in life do we stop and say it is time to make changes to our lives? We need to improve ourselves.  We make promises or resolutions to do just that, but they are only tinkering around the edges. Now and again we need to be more honest and...

The Shipwrecked Man There was a man who was shipwrecked and all alone on a small island. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements and to store his few possessions. Things for a moment seemed to be getting better. But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. The worst had happened; everything was lost, even his one or two personal items that had become so important to him, were gone. He was stung with grief and anger. "Why oh why is this happening to me?" he cried. He had what I call a dose of the “poor me’s.” Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signa...

The Death of a Sage Bankei, a famous wise sage had grown old had passed away. There was much talk of the death of Bankei around the town, many people speaking of the great loss he would be. There lived in the town a blind man who lived near the master’s temple. Talking with a friend about the death of Bankei, he told his friend the following. “Since I am blind, I cannot watch a person’s face, so I must judge his character by the sound of his voice. Ordinarily, when I hear someone congratulate another upon his happiness or success, I also hear a secret tone of envy.  When condolence is expressed for the misfortune of another, I hear pleasure and satisfaction, as if the one consoling was really glad there was something left to gain in his own world. In all my experience, however, Bankei’s voice was always sincere. Whenever he expressed happiness, I heard nothing but happiness, and whenever he expressed sorrow, sorrow was all I heard.” The greatest lesson we...

The Parrot That Would Not Fly Once upon a time, there was a king who had gone to visit a neighbouring town, where he was gifted a pair of baby Macaw parrots.  They were the most beautiful birds he had ever seen. On returning home he employed a bird trainer to work with the two parrots. He arranged a place in the garden for the parrots. He often looked at them from his window. As time passed, the trainer came and informed the king that though one of the parrots was flying majestically high in the sky, the other one had not moved from its branch since the day it had arrived. The king sought the advice of many bird trainers but all to no avail. he asked all of his servants if any of them could think of a way to get the parrot to fly. Nothing they suggested worked and the parrot continued to sit on the same branch. One day the king was out riding in the country and spoke to one of the farmers he met, a simple man. The farmer on hearing of the parro...