The Parable of the Sandpit
Imagine yourself as father and mother with three-year old twins. Both of your children, a boy
and a girl are in a sandpit, where you watch them play. You observe them experimenting and exploring their local environment
- the sandpit.
The kids see the sand; they smell it, they listen to it and they try to eat the sand. They fondle the sand and they feel
it; they try to do all sorts of things to the sand, like sticking it in their hair and up their noses and into their ears.
When something like another child, even a twin, disturbs their endeavours, then they may start to throw the sand at each other;
verbal utterances are supplemented by gestures meanings things like "It's mine!" or "I was here first, so just go away!"
This is the playground of very young children before school age and very well known to every parent. Now as father and
mother, what would you expect as an answer from the kids to questions like:
"Where did the sand come from kid?
Why do you think or behave like you owned it?"
If the kid could talk it would say: "It's just there! So I took it!"; and that would be it. Would the child understand
your knowledge and experience and logic?
Namely, that the sand came from a beach or a mine and ultimately from exploding stars called supernovae and so the universe?
And whatever made the supernova, made the universe and made the sand?
Father and Mother know very well that the sandpit was built for providing a learning experience for the children. Then
the father and mother might recall their own childhood and remember the times, when they themselves had been playing in a
sandpit.
Ah yes, there was Tom and Julie and Henry and Elizabeth. And over there is Stephen and Rachel and Harold and Pamela. They
all had played and had ravelled in the sandpit.
Tom was now the chief research scientist working for the chemical manufacturer and multinational corporation Drug-U-Better
& Co. Julie had become a top PR-Executive of a transatlantic oil exporter.
Henry was empolyed as a chief banker for the worldwide Unibank. Elizabeth was so pretty, she worked seven days a week as
a supermodel of the catwalk.
Stephen had made his name as a world renowned mathematical physicist. Rachel worked and part-owned a wholesale department
store and thought soon to extend her business interstate and overseas.
Harold owned and operated Trick-A-Cheapcar, a highly profitable used car yard and dealership; he considered it time to
move into gold, real estate and the Vatican Bank. Pamela made her daily run on the stockmarket; she was so good at it, that
she had even given up her lucrative career as a lawyer over it....
And Dad and Mum are standing on the edge of the sandpit watching the children play in the sand; but now the sand was made
into different toys to play with.
There was paper and metals and plastics and other things. The kids still chucked the sand around, but now they called it
money and computers and rockets and things and cars and satellites and guns and things...
If all the kids are children of nature, the universe and if all the children are still growing up; should they then not
be destined to grow into entire universes themselves?
That is the logical conclusion in a development from baby to child to adult.
And Mum and Dad are standing on the edge of the sandpit, watching the children play in the sand - they are always watching
you and they are always loving you - their kid."
We Becoming - A Story of a Pearly Charm
Once upon a time, I lived in the land of my father and my
mother and my brother. Because I was so young and inexperienced, I
had to go into a foreign land of great perils, dangers and temptations
- to learn many things and also to help my parents.
My dear father had lost a precious pearl there a long time ago, when he
was visiting that foreign land to court and marry my
mother. Yet my father knew that he would lose his most dearest treasure
in meeting my mother.
Alas, he was so lonely in his castle and he wanted children and no fair
maiden could be found anywhere in his kingdom. So my dear father sacrificed his pearl for a family and sent his sons and daughters to retrieve it for him when the appropriate time had come.
My dear brother, being next in rank, came into the perilous land to meet
the serpent-king who had found my father's pearl and who guarded it
very jealously. My brother was however the result of my father's loss
and so after becoming our parent's pride and joy, he had to return
to the kingdom without our father's precious pearl.
Many years did pass , but when the time was right, our parents desired
to regain their common treasure, the pearl my father had used to love
my mother and to beget their firstborn son; and I was asked to go and
see what I could do. Before I left the kingdom, my parents gave me
a thing to take , nothing really, but yet a heavy burden because of
its lightness; it was so light I could carry it all by myself.
But my wonderfully fitting clothes I left behind, when I set out
to search for my parent's lost treasure. And so I parted from my guides
as soon as I had entered the perilous land of the dragon and proceeded to do the solitary work my parents had sent me to do.
I was a stranger to all the people except one after my own kind, an inheritor
of the ancient crafts and wisdom and a daughter of the kings and queens
of old. Her I trusted and she and I agreed on taking care of each other
in the dangers we would be facing from the many monsters and dwellers
in the serpent's land.
For that purpose I put on my unclean clothes, so as not to arouse suspicion
towards myself. But
they cunningly found out to themselves that I had come from a foreign land; they beguiled me and I forgot my work and my heart fell asleep as I served their dragon king.
But the love of my parents and the memories of my past were written
in my heart, so that I would not forget what I had come to do when
I had left my king and queen. My parents got deeply concerned about
my sleeping my time away and it was decreed, at the gates of our kingdom,
that a message should be sent to me.
The letter was signed by my father who wished for me to think of him, and
by my mother who had waved me good-bye and had asked for my love; and
by my brother who craved to help me in my work.
The message I received came by way of an eagle, the emblem of my brother's
testimony regarding the honour, the grace and the beauty of our mother.
And just before my brother did return from his birthplace, did he ask
me to provide for our mother and to look after her many inheritances.
And so the same right hand of my father which had the power to seal
and which he had used to court my mother, this same hand had sealed
the message for me in a strange melody of song and speech. I awoke to this wondrous happening; I kissed the messenger and I fell in love. And my love remembered my heart and the broken seal revealed the way to fulfil my
mission of retrieving my dear father's lost pearl.
And so I used my magic to enchant the terrible and snorting serpent. The charming thoughts of my unsealing lulled the dragon to sleep when my father's
name became the serpent's name and my brother's name moved a little
and my mother's name was joined to the name of the next in rank.
And so did I take my dear father's lost treasure from the dragon who snorts
and who bites his very own tail. I took off my unclean clothes from that foreign country and proceeded on my mending journey back home towards the east. My unsealed letter remained
next to me, like a Beloved and guided all my ways.
When I had arrived home, I put on my beautifully fitting garments,
which I had left behind and in the care of minders and I suddenly realised
the unity and altogetherness of my very own self. Two could be apart, each with its own burden, and yet two could be together as one in two and two in one. And
my clothes were moving with the wisdom and the words of all in one and one in all and I perceived the acts of my upbringing in my father's house to relate to my own growing selfhood.
And my love had urged me on to meet the minders of my garments and I relished
the beauty of their colours and the royal splendour of the movements
of the him in her and the insights of the she in him.
Then I ascended to the gate of my dear father's great love and adoring
her, heshe received us joyfully in herhis queendom and our dear Father
was so happy, that we had brought our precious pearl to our Mother.
Greetings and Love from the Shalom in Exile!
John of Patmos"
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