By Winnie Bolton
My, oh my, how the world is changing for the better!
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if just one day we could wake-up to hear those words over our airwaves or read them in our newspapers instead of the malaise the world renders us?
The bad news often makes it difficult to lift the veil that blurs the goodness surrounding us.
But the goodness is there and it’s our responsibility to meet the challenge.
My prayer everyday is that I’ll trip over some unexpected goodness along my path because at times I, like you, am blind to it and need God’s help to become aware of its presence.
I am reminded of the children’s book I once read to a classroom of kindergartners. The author took the familiar Three Little Pigs theme, and gave it a new twist.
Allow me to share the book’s cleverness with you.
The time came for three little wolves to find their place in this big, old world of ours so off they went and built themselves a modern brick dwelling.
What they hadn’t reckoned was the big, bad pig who came along and bulldozed their house down.
The determined little wolves built a stronger house of concrete thinking themselves very safe.
Then came along the big, bad pig who made short work of destroying their home with a pneumatic drill.
Even their next house made of armor plates was blown to bits when the big, bad pig destroyed it with dynamite.
It was only a chance encounter of unexpected goodness when a flamingo presented the little wolves with a wheelbarrow full of flowers to build yet another house.
The little wolves made one wall of marigolds, one of daffodils, another of pink roses and one of cherry blossoms. The ceiling was created using sunflowers and the floor was a yellow daisy carpet.
The little wolves put water lilies in their bathtub and buttercups atop their kitchen counters.
The big, bad pig returned the following day asking once more to be let in or he’d blow all those silly flowers away.
But as he took a deep breath, the beautiful scent was so overpowering that instead of huffing and puffing, the big, bad pig began to sniff and then he started to dance and laugh. He was so enthralled with the aroma that his hard heart began to melt causing tears of joy to trickle down his cheeks.
At first, the little wolves thought it was a trick but then realized how gentle the pig’s actions were becoming so they joined with him in the dance and invited him into their home for tea and wolf berries.
Today’s children living in the reality of modern equipment and technology are being coached along a path of non- violence – (an alternative peaceful solution) by this clever author and a silly, old bird showed them the way.
Perhaps they can show us older folks that we need to listen to each other’s ideas and possible solutions that might come from unexpected goodness that surrounds us constantly in our fragile, failing, imperfect world.
Let’s not lose sight that God’s in charge.
