There was once a farmer that kept all sorts of barnyard animals. Of all these animals, the pig was his favorite. He loved the pig so much that he decided to distinguish it from all the others. So, he went into town and asked the goldsmith to craft the most beautiful ring. The farmer then proudly put the ring on the pig’s snout.

The pig looked almost handsome wearing the golden nose ring. However, even with the new honor, it continued to do what all pigs have an instinct to do – dipping it’s snout in all sorts of murky places.

The farmer was heart broken. Should he choose a more self-respecting animal from his barn to wear the nose ring? Should he remove the ring from the pig’s snout and keep it for himself? Could he trust the pig to change its ways?

Stepping Stones

Think not that life has been unfair
and given you too much to bear…
for God has choosen you because
with all your weaknesses and flaws
He feels that you are worth of
the greatness of His wondrous love.
welcome every stumbling block
and every thorn and jagged rock,
for each one is a stepping stone
to a fuller life than we’ve ever known,
and in the radiance of God’s smiles
we learn to soar above life’s trials.
and as we grow in strength and grace
the clearer we see God’s face.

by helen steiner rice

A man was seriously disillusioned by the life he was living. He wanted more – a nice car, big house, respect from colleagues and recognition from his boss.

Being a religious man, he got down on his knees and cried out, “God please help me! Show me the direction to follow. Please give me a sign!” After that, he felt an inner peace that comes after successfully communicating with the Creator.

Unfortunately, no breakthrough came for him. He lived each unhappy day trusting in God to deliver a miracle to him. Eventually, he died and went to heaven. When he finally met God, he asked him, “God, why did you not answer my prayer?”

God looked at him, smiled kindly and told him, “I practically shouted the answer at you!”
“When?” the man asked incredulously. With that, God retrieved a remote control from a drawer in front of him, pushed a button and a scene from the man’s former work place appeared on a screen. The boss was thundering his usual bad day lecture to his hapless employee, “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you walk out of here and get yourself another job?!”

God then explained to him, “The answer to all your problems lay in your initiative to find a job that you liked. Your boss shouting was my answer to you.”

One day, a starving hyena was walking along a road when he came across the appetizing scent of roasting meat. This was the closest the hyena had come to having something in his stomach in the many days that food had eluded him. Without wasting time, he immediately began following the promising scent.

After a short distance however, the hyena discovered that the road branched into two paths. The hyena was in a dilemma after realizing that the scent came from each of these paths. After pondering his problem for a while, the hyena came to a decision – to walk down the two paths at the same time. That way, the he would not miss any of the two feasting opportunities.

To achieve this impossible feat, the hyena set himself astride the two branching paths and began walking. The more the roads diverged, the wider he had to stretch out his legs. Despite the extraordinary effort involved, the hyena’s greedy streak would not let him quit. Finally, the hyena split into two.

It is a good thing to seize each and every opportunity that presents itself to us. However, at some point, we might have to make a choice that forces us to drop what is considerably valuable. Though it is a painful process at times, it is the wise thing to do. Otherwise, we risk spreading ourselves too thin and ending up with complications that come when we handle matters that require us to have more than two hands attached to our bodies.

I recently bid farewell to a friend who is leaving Somaliland for a new job appointment elsewhere. Among other things, I will personally remember him for the way he puts across a serious issue with a light touch.

A good example is when we once discussed the issue of life after death. He presented the reality in such a way that I found myself thinking about the options available for me when I die.

During the discussion I could see myself in heaven – all in white, being fitted with wings and trying on a halo. I even though about how much time it would take for me to learn how to play the harp. That worry soon disappeared when I remembered that I would have eternity at my disposal.

Then I saw myself in a long queue waiting to be processed into hell. I thought of the punishments that would be waiting for me – maybe, having every word I have written in this web site being tattooed on my skin with a hot branding iron every day? Well, at least I would get to meet the legendary Al Capone. Al Capone is America’s best-known gangster and the single greatest symbol of the collapse of law and order in the United States during the 1920s. I would be curious to find out what kind of punishment was chosen for him by the devil.

Whatever the case, the conversation drew me to the fact that I have the part of me that qualifies to go into heaven, and another part that can send me straight into purgatory. Every one of my thoughts, decisions and actions empowers one part at the expense of the other.

It does not matter what you believe afterlife to be like, or even whether you believe in it at all. The fact is, a good seed and an evil seed both bear fruits of their own likeness in this life. Let’s plant wisely.

Madam had three pairs of shoes. Her ordinary work shoes, the scruffy slippers and the immaculate evening shoes. The work shoes were slightly crooked from many months of use. Each evening, they echoed Madam’s tired sigh as she placed them on the shoe rack. The slippers rarely had a moment on the shoe rack. They were always on the move around the house. The evening shoes were shiny high-heels with a bright red color. Unlike the others, the evening shoes spent almost all their time on the shoe rack.

The work shoes and slippers had no time for the evening shoes that only left the shoe rack once a week for Madam’s evening of painting the town red. Though none would admit it, they secretly wished that they could also have such a lifestyle.

One morning following Madam’s night out, red shoes quietly began weeping at her corner. The kind hearted work shoes quickly enquired what was wrong. Red shoes immediately poured her heart out. She told about the terrible night on the dance floor: Being stepped on by other shoes and the nausea and dizziness caused by all the spinning and the blinking lights.

The other shoes comforted red shoes by telling about their own experiences. Work shoes told about walking around a noisy factory all day. Slippers told about getting wet all the time. How red shoes envied them for their ordinary days! She disliked her pedestal life on the shoe rack. From that day onwards, the three shoes lived as comrades.

Sometimes, we find ourselves envying other people for what we perceive as their good fortune. This envy steals the joy we would otherwise derive from our own blessings. When I think about all that is going wrong in our world today, I am grateful for an ordinary day.

Choosing Shoes

New shoes, new shoes,
Red and pink and blue shoes.
Tell me, what would you choose,
If they’d let us buy?

Buckle shoes, bow shoes,
Pretty pointy-toe shoes,
Strappy, cappy low shoes;
Let’s have some to try.

Bright shoes, white shoes,
Dandy-dance-by-night shoes,
Perhaps-a-little-tight shoes,
Like some? So would I.

BUT

Flat shoes, fat shoes,
Stump-along-like-that shoes,
Wipe-them-on-the-mat shoes,
That’s the sort they’ll buy.

- Frida Wolfe –

Today, I think I said goodbye to the bright yellow of the sunshine, fell through the gray suffocating clouds and am now floating through the abyss of blue at the roof of the world.

From here, it looks like I would only need to reach out my hand to pluck the brightest star. However, in this celestial wilderness, the value of a star might as well be that of a single tiny bud in a cotton field. I would just need to use my little finger to tilt the new moon for a drink of water that collected in the crescent after a downpour. But there is no joy in lonely laughter from the water that glows in the belly and tickles with effervescence.

So I will just sleep. I will need to be strong if I am to fall from the sky tomorrow.

One day a weary traveler came across an oasis. The oasis had a spectacular patch of mango and coconut trees that could be seen from miles away. Surprisingly, there was no one living in the oasis.

All his life, the man had been wandering in the desert and had never seen or eaten a fruit before. On the first day, he picked a mango and ate it. He thoroughly enjoyed the fleshy and juicy fruit. In fact, it was the best thing he had ever tasted. Within a few days, he had eaten all the mangoes from the trees.

With the mangoes gone, the traveler soon felt hungry and decided to eat a coconut. He picked one coconut and attempted to sink his teeth into it. Unlike the mango, the coconut was hard, hairy and unyielding. The traveler looked at the coconut with regret and tossed it aside saying to himself, “if only that was a mango.” Within a few days, he had sampled all the coconuts in the oasis, found them different from the mango he was used to and cast them aside.

The starving man soon departed from the oasis, leaving behind a pile of coconuts that he had discarded as useless.

Everyday, we come across mangoes and coconut in the form of the people that we interact with. Being tough or unattractive on the outside might be the shield for a wealth of goodness on the inside – just like a coconut. The softness and beauty on the outside might hide a hard and uncompromising core – just like a mango.

Identify the type of a fruit you are dealing with, and you will be able to benefit from its goodness.

One day, a father and his son were walking on a footpath through the bushes. They were so engrossed in conversation that none of them saw a snake that suddenly appeared in their path. As a result, the father who was in front stepped on the snake, causing it to bite him on the leg.

On hearing his father yell out in alarm, the son looked down, only to see the snake disappearing into the bushes. With that, he picked a big stick lying by the footpath and hastily went after the snake. The son’s determination only allowed him to return after he found and killed the snake. There was a proud smile on his face as he emerged from the bushes with the dead snake dangling from the end of the stick.

Of course, he was too late to save his father.

Many people have advised that money and career will never compensate for the absence or loss of love and family. Most of these people talk through personal experience.

The son was too busy chasing after the snake in the bush to hear his father’s dying groans. The groans might well be the pleas of little ones asking for more time with their parents. Or the sound of one partner in a relationship crying for the attention of the other partner. Just as the dead snake could not bring the father to life, more money in the bank or a long awaited promotion might not save a broken family or dysfunctional relationship.

Mohammed the gate man in my home compound here in Hargeisa, Somaliland has a small transistor radio. Right now, I can hear the radio’s confusion through its tiny speaker as he searches through the dial for a suitable Somali news channel. I can guarantee you that he is simultaneously fiddling with the fully extended aerial as he attempts to position it for the best reception.

I often marvel at the clever design of a radio’s aerial. The six-inch compact that can be folded and tucked neatly into a notch in the radio can be pulled out to about five times its initial length.

A stick of sugarcane uncannily resembles an extended radio’s aerial. It consists of sections that are separated by knotty “joints”. The bottom part of the sugarcane has the widest, longest and sweetest sections. As the cane tapers upwards, the width, length and sweetness diminishes progressively.

If you have chewed sugarcane, you know that you have to choose whether to start with the sweet bottom or the watery top. A complete sugarcane-chewing experience involves sampling both the good and not-so-good part of the cane.

Any personal relationship worth more than a single coin requires that we enjoy the good and also learn how to deal with the not-so-good aspects of the other person. Words like patience, understanding, selflessness, and empathy represent qualities that are required to have a fulfilling relationship between any two human beings.

As the saying goes, you cannot pick up one end of a stick without picking up the other end.

The poet Robert Browning met the love of his life, Elizabeth Barrett, when both were over forty years old. During her early years, Elizabeth had endured hell on earth. One of eleven children, she grew up under the siege of an oppressive, abusive father. His angry rages frequently confined her to bed with an accumulation of ills.

Then Elizabeth met Robert. He did not see her as a sickly, middle-aged invalid, but as a beautiful, talented spirit waiting to bloom. After some brutal confrontations with her father, they were married and traveled the European continent, drinking the wonders of centuries-old beauty.

Their union transformed them both. At forty-three, Elizabeth gave birth to her first child. This loving wife and mother at last begun to explore her gift for poetry. The collections she wrote such as Sonnets from the Portuguese, celebrate in word portraits the transformations of her life. One of the poems included was the incomparable “How do I love thee.”

The Elizabeth Barrett Browning who became one of our greatest romantic poets was there all the time, just waiting for her lover to discover her. Is someone in your life waiting for your love to bring out the best in them?

How do I love thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints! – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, all of my life! – and if God chooses,
I shall but love thee better after death.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning –

As you read the words of this immortal love poem, consider how you would “count the ways” you might describe the love of your life. In silence, picture images of your beloved – at work, at play, alone, with you, with your children, in laughter, at prayer. Sometimes words will be given to you, just when you think words cannot express your feelings. Feel free to write them and show them to them.

(adapted from God’s Little Lessons on Life for Women)