Parable of the Minnows

Father Gregory Ned Blevins wrote this wonderful parable based on his experiences working at a marina. In this parable the net is a symbol of Christ.

So this new job I have, it’s at a marina, which sells live minnows as bait. Maintaining these minnows involves cleaning the tanks in which they live, and replacing dirty water with clean. The cleaning process requires transferring them, with a net, from one tank to another so that the dirty tank can be cleaned. Of course, the minnows aren’t very happy with this process, and invariably, the fastest and strongest minnows are the last to be netted and transferred. What the minnows don’t realize, of course, is that if they are not moved, they will die; the dirty water will kill them. Of course, while they are being transferred, flopping in the net, out of the water for a second or two, they FEEL like they are dying, and if they are especially strong, sometimes they jump out of the net. If they fall back into the water, they’re fine, but often, when they jump out of the net, some will land on the floor or ground, and lie there in agony, flopping around, gasping for the oxygen they cannot assimilate while being out of the water. The ones I miss, or don't get to fast enough, they really do die.

Let the reader understand.

Ed Pacht on the Parable of the Wooden Bowl

Family Table

I am blind.
I am weak.
I stumble and mutter and drool.
My manners are bad.
My complaining is loud,
and nothing I do comes out right.
There's food on the floor
and stains on my clothes,
and dishes are broken and chipped.
Yet here I sit and here I am fed
,and here I can know His love.

I am blind.
I am weak.
I am loved.
I am called.
I am called to the Table of Love.
I may be a problem,
I may give you pain,
but I'm called to the Table of Love,
the Table where He offers Himself,
and, wounded, His hands feed me,
and hold me,
and take me for his very own,
and join me at His Table
to the everlasting family of Love.

ed pacht
Sept. 28, 2008

Parable of the Wooden Bowl

The old man’s sight was failing. His hands trembled. He could no longer live alone so he went to live with his son, his son’s wife, and his four-year old grandson, Andy. Eating was difficult for the old man. Peas rolled off his spoon. Tea spilled on the tablecloth. The old man chipped a saucer and cracked a plate.

The son’s wife complained so often that the husband finally gave in to her demand. The old man would take his meals alone in the kitchen. He would eat from a wooden bowl. The family continued to eat in the dining room, but Andy missed his Grandpa.

One afternoon Andy’s parents noticed their son playing with scraps of wood. They asked him what he was making and Andy explained, “I’m making a wooden bowl for you to eat your food when I grow up.” The words struck the parents speechless. That evening Andy’s father took his Dad’s hand and gently led him back to the family table.

In our lives we are like the old man, unsteady and blind. We make a mess of things, we break things, and we make others uncomfortable. Yet God takes us by the hand and leads us to the Family Table. It may be called an “altar” and the family meal may be called “Communion” or “Eucharist.” We are made welcome because of what God’s Son has done, and if we stay away from the family table, God’s Son seeks us in order to bring us to the fellowship of His table.

Hannah Mulliken's "Peace and Quiet"

Some readers will remember Hannah Mulliken, one of my favorite young writers to be published at Student Publish Here! Hannah is in the seventh grade this year. She recently wrote a story about Noah's flood from the perspective of a mouse family living on the ark. Here is her delightful story.

Peace and Quiet
by Hannah Mulliken

Wise old grandpa mouse perched high up in the rafters of the ark, watching Noah and his family care for all the animals.

“Grandpa, grandpa!” called Little Ellen.

“When do I ever get some peace and quiet around here?” Grandpa mumbled. “Coming, Ellen!”

Grandpa slid down the rafters and trudged into the cozy little mouse hole, right next to the horse stall. “Whew!” He sighed and sat down heavily in the rocker. “What do you need?”

“We want to know why we are on this huge boat.” Her brother Mikey hurriedly whispered, “Momma won’t tell us so we hoped you would, because you always do!”

Grandpa smiled. “Well I guess so. Only, if your Momma hears about this, which I know she will, don’t blame me.” Then he began the story: “Many years ago, long before you were born, I had a dream. God told me to quickly and quietly pack up everything in our mouse hole and leave Shemphal’s house…..”

“What’s Shemphal’s house Grandpa?” asked Mikey.

“It was where they lived silly!” Ellen said. “Don’t you remember? Momma told us that!”

“And God told me to go to this boat in the middle of a desert and…..”

“What’s a desert?” Ellen interrupted.

‘This is going to be a long story,” Grandpa sighed. “Well, a desert is a place where there is no water, only sand. We soon found that we weren’t the only ones who were going to be living here. Many other animals were told to come here too, and so the boat was speedily filled. Then, God shut the door, sent the water and here we are!”

“But what about us? How did we get here?” Mikey wondered out loud.

“Well, five days later you twins were born to your Momma and Papa. And now you are thirty-five days old.”

“Grandpa, look!” gasped Ellen. “Master Noah’s opening the window and it doesn’t look like its raining!”

Mikey scampered out of the mouse hole, through Mr. Grumpy Goat’s stall to the window and climbed on the sill. “Wow” he shouted, amazed at what he saw.

“Mikey,” Grandpa rebuked, “Come back! What would your mother say if the saw you?”

But Mikey wasn’t listening because he was too intent on trying to find a dry patch of land. Suddenly he felt himself being lifted by something or someone.

“It’s too dangerous for you to be up there, little fellow,” said Noah. “I was about to let loose this raven to find dry ground.”

Days passed. The raven came back, but had found no land. Seven days later, Noah sent a dove, which came back with an olive branch in his beak.

Mikey was getting tired of waiting. “When will the earth dry up?”

Grandpa smiled. “God will decide in his own time.”

“But when is His time?” Mikey whined.

“Be patient. God will decide when it is time, Mikey.”

Suddenly, there was a loud thud, shaking the entire boat. The door was open!

Mikey’s mouth dropped open. “Look!” Ellen pulled his tail and said, “Come on.”

The twin mice raced out the door tumbling into the soft green grass. They did not know what they were looking at, but for miles all they could see was grass, and trees, and flowers. All of the animals bowed their heads in honor of the One who brought them safely through the storm.

Grandpa chuckled as he watched his grandmice scamper on the green earth. “Finally, I can have some peace and quiet.”

(To read other of Hannah's writings go to the INDEX and click on her name.)

Shakespeare Lost in Translation

About 20 years ago I read a fascinating account by Laura Bohannan of her attempt to tell the story of Hamlet to a group of West Africans. She was convinced that Shakespeare's plot would be universally understood, but such proved not to be the case. What follows speaks of the challenge of translation of meaning across cultures.

I protested that I was not a story teller. Story telling is a skilled art among them; their standards are high, the audiences critical and vocal in their criticism. I protested in vain. This morning they wanted to hear a story while they drank. They threatened to tell me no more stories until I told them one of mine. Finally, the old man promised that no one would criticize my style, 'for we know you are struggling with our language.' 'but,' put in one of the elders, 'you must explain what we do not understand, as we do, when we tell you our stories.' Suddenly realizing that here was my chance to prove Hamlet universally intelligible, I agreed.

The old man handed me some more beer to hlep me on with my story telling. Men filled their long pipes and knocked coals from the fire to place in the pipe bowl; then, puffing contentedly, they sat back to listen. I began in the proper style, 'Not yesterday, not yesterday, but long ago, a thing occurred. One night three men were keeping watch outside the homestead of the great chief, when suddenly they saw the former chief approach them.'

'Why was he no longer their chief?'

'He was dead,' I explained. 'That is why they were troubled and afraid when they saw him.'

'Impossible,' began one of the elders, handing his pipe on to his neighbor, who interrupted. 'Of course it wasn't the dead chief; it was an omen sent by a witch. Go on.'

Slightly shaken, I continued. 'One of these three was a man who knew things' - the closest translation for scholar, but unfortunately it also meant witch. The second elder looked triumphantly at the first. 'So he spoke to the dead chief saying, 'Tell us what we must do so you may rest in your grave,' but the dead chief did not answer. He vanished, and they could see him no more. Then the man who knew things - his name was Horatio - said this event was the affair of the dead chief's son, Hamlet.'

There was a general shaking of heads round the circle. 'Had the dead chief no living brothers? Or was this son the chief?'

'No,' I replied. 'That is, he had one living brother who became the chief when the elder brother died.'

The old men muttered: such omens were matters for chiefs and elders, not for youngsters; no good could come of going behind a chief's back; obviously this Horatio was not a man who knew things.

"Yes, he was,' I insisted, shooing a chicken away from my beer. 'In our country the son is the next to the father. The dead chief's younger brother had become the great chief. He had also married his elder brother's widow only about a month after the funeral.'

'He did well,' the old man beamed and announced to the others, 'I told you that if we knew more about Europeans, we would find they really were very like us. In our country also,' he added to me, 'the younger brother marries the elder brother's widow and becomes the father of his children. Now, if your uncle, who married your widowed mother, is your father's full brother, then he will be a real father to you. Did Hamlet's father and uncle have one mother?'

His question scarcely penetrated my mind; I was too upset and thrown off balance by having one of the most important elements of Hamlet knocked straight out of the picture. Rather uncertainly I said that I thought they had the same mother, but I wasn't sure; the story didn't say. The old man told me severely that these genealogical details made all the difference...

While I paused, perplexed at how to render Hamlet's disgusted soliloquy to an audience convinced that Claudius and Gertrude had behaved in the best possible manner, one of the young men asked me who had married the other wives of the chief.

'He had no other wives,' I told him.

'But a chief must have many wives! ...'

Excerpt from Bohannan, Laura 1976. ʹMiching Mallecho, That Means Witchcraftʹ in Middleton, J. (ed.) Magic, Witchcraft, and Curing. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Gabriela Mistral

Perhaps the most beloved poet of Chile, Gabriela Mistral, was the first female Latin American poet to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. She received the Prize in 1945 "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world" – Nobel Citation

Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym for Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga, born in 1889 in Chile. Mistral’s work is influenced by her Christian faith. She was a lay member of the Franciscan order.

Mistral died in 1957. On her tomb were inscribed her own words: "What the soul is to the body, so is the artist to his people."

Here are 2 of my favorite poems by Mistral:

Tres Árboles

Tres árboles caídos
quedaron a la orilla del sendero.
El leñador los olvidó, y conversan,
apretados de amor, como tres ciegos.

El sol de ocaso pone
su sangre viva en los hendidos leños
¡y se llevan los vientos la fragancia
de su costado abierto!

Uno, torcido, tiende
su brazo inmenso y de follaje trémulo
hacia otro, y sus heridas
como dos ojos son, llenos de ruego.

El leñador los olvidó. La noche
vendrá. Estaré con ellos.
Recibiré en mi corazón sus mansas
resinas. Me serán como de fuego.
¡Y mudos y ceñidos,
nos halle el día en un montón de duelo!


Caricia
Madre, madre, tú me besas
pero yo te beso más
y el enjambre de mis besos
no te deja ni mirar...

Si la abeja se entra al lirio,
no se siente su aletear.
Cuando escondes a tu hijito
ni se le oye respirar...

Yo te miro, yo te miro
sin cansarme de mirar,
y qué lindo niño veo
a tus ojos asomar...

El estanque copia todo
lo que tú mirando estás;
pero tú en las niñas tienes
a tu hijo y nada más.

Los ojitos que me diste
me los tengo de gastar
en seguirte por los valles,
por el cielo y por el mar...