There is a large family, many of the children are adopted, and this family is known in the land as being children of their father. This family behaves in such a way as to stain the reputation of those who say that they are the children of the father. The are known as hypocrites and pompous.
Here is how life operates. The father wrote a book, and this book was to be read and understood in all the family, but to be mysterious in many parts to those who are not in the family. Many of the children had read the book so much that they started looking for ways to understand it deeper, so many of them wrote books on that book, trying to explain it in a much expanded fashion.
There was disagreement almost from the start of the family about what the book was trying to say, so some members of the family decided to start schools to explain it to the children that were not as smart as they were (or so they thought) the children who started this school, which was only for the family, hired other children that they thought were smart enough, dressed well enough and were organized enough, to teach in these schools. Sons and daughters showed up, were given the curriculum, and a place to sit and learn, along with homework. There became an air or mystery about this school, and it was decided to charge the family members for attending. After the course was completed, those who graduated campaigned in the various houses that housed the family across the land, to become their teacher. The households accepted them, and the graduate taught them about how to understand the book by what they had been taught. He gathered some people from the family to be called wise men, and some to be called helpers. The wise men would support the teacher, and also how the building would be expanded, also to divvy up the funds from the household to feed those in the house that did not have enough money for food and clothes, and to also try to adopt more people by recruiting those from the house to go out and campaign about how wonderful it was to know about the father, and to be in that house. Those called helpers were given charge of small groups, as a way for family members to get to know each-other within the house.
They also were in charge of maintenance of the house and setting up for teaching times. It was decided that most houses were having two teaching times, so at one teaching time, the teacher would teach for a certain amount of time, and all would listen and agree, those who disagreed and told the teacher so, the teacher would tell the helpers to kinda keep an eye on him because the teacher was afraid that maybe one day they would disrupt their teaching time. The second teaching time would be by some of the helpers, and this was often broken up into very small meetings by age. The second teaching time was organized much like the first, but the person leading it would often ask questions about the material that he was teaching (that was approved by the wise men) this gave people the feeling they were interacting. All this took place on a Tuesday as it was their custom to do so. After the teaching time, each went to their corner of the house, and ate, and told each-other how nice the teaching time had been. There were some people who could not attend the teaching time on Tue and they were either largely forgotten or told that they should be in fellowship with the family as the book said, so they might need to do whatever it took to attend.
There was a son of the father that was reading the book that the father had written, and it occurred to him that there was no need for such formalities within the family. At the end of one of the meetings, he talked to the teacher about it, the teacher told him that this was probably only pride and told him to read a book that one of the family members had written about it. He also suggested that the son get his own house and recruit his own family members instead of focusing on this house. From this time they maintained that the organization they had was lawful according to the book (because it did not prohibit it) and went on with their way of doing things.
It was known that talking to other people in the house you are in about doing things differently that the teacher said was considered extremely rude or worse, those who were in the house were conditioned not to listen to those in disagreement with the teacher, as they understood those to be people consumed with hate and blind to the truth. The son, was at whit's end, because he knew that no good would come of such pompous ceremonies, but bound by the rules of the polite society he kept quiet, trusting that perhaps what was told him, "that patience would make this right without upsetting people" was true. He liked the teacher, and the wise men and the helpers but he ached for all those who attended the teaching times because there was such a better way of being a family.
The son kept quiet unless the subject came up, in order that peace may be maintained in the house, but he did not feel good about doing so and thought that perhaps he should speak to all the house together, but alas, the only time that that would even be possible was during the main teaching time, and people were conditioned to think this was beyond rude and to disregard what might be said at such an out of time place.
So the son asked the father what he should do, and the father said the family needed to change their ways, and so the son went to tell the children what the father had said and they were upset, and started looking at the book, well some people said what the son said was in the book, and others said it was not. The son tried telling them it came from the father, but they said that the father no longer talks to his children that way, and now he only speaks through the book he had given to help them. The son was sad but he knew what the father had told him, and though the other children started calling him crazy and laughing at him, he held fast, for he had a hero who he tried to follow who also was rejected by the children of the father. He remembered what his hero had gone through and knew that no matter how bad it got he could make it through for just as his hero trusted in the father to take care of him, so did he.
***Most of the story was done by my brother over a year ago, but I am confident he is ok with my additions as we talked about this subject before (I know him, so I do not need explicit permission)
Comments (1)
Excellent parable.
Heather