He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is of grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house."The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."
The mouse turned to the cow. She said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.
But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember -- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to ENCOURAGE and when possible, HELP ONE ANOTHER.
Thank you George for the email that soothed my troubled mind this morning when I was so very tempted to just walk away from this whole beautiful mess. I will do my very best to continue to try to climb this mountain, but be patient because I am walking wounded once more.
This has brought into the open many shadows from the past. Issues with trust, irritation because NOTHING is ever easy for me, worry about time that should be spent on rewrites, etc, etc, etc; in an almost endless steam the issues rush from one side of my brain to the other without clear direction.
I realize that there is a process that must be passed through to reach the other side of this heartache. I have been there so many times, back and forth across this landscape, and I know there are no shortcuts to reaching a resolution. But I do know to turn my back on this would break some promises I made. And Journey's End is all about walking the hard trail beside one another, not just simply walking away because someone else does.
TODAY'S QUOTE:
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi, (attributed)
Endless bitch slapping of one another solves nothing, proves nothing, while earning a sore hand and a stinging face. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is not an invitation for revenge, but a plea for mutual respect. If every injustice is returned with a pinch of I can do you one better added then each act will lead straight toward disaster. And that is simply not a direction I would ever willingly go.
THINK ABOUT IT
LET IT GROW
THEN DECIDE
