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Thursday, January 7, 2010

My Self Portrait

So I normally like to maintain a low profile . . . not speak too loudly, avoid cameras, that sort of thing. But, my Mom said the other day, "That sketch of the woman on your website is perfect. You should do a self portrait."

To this I responded, "I already did."

"Why haven't I seen it?" she replied.

"You have!" I said.

"Well why don't you post it on your website?" She answered.

So . . . it's old . . . it's more or less out of date . . . so it therefore can't do much harm. Here it is.

Of course, I haven't even written enough text to get to the bottom of the picture yet, and I have nothing left to say.

How about a parable?

A very religious mother once asked her two sons while watching a news report on the space station, "For heaven's sake, why do people have to do that? Head off into space, and risk their lives?"

The two sons couldn't answer the question.

Many years later, one of the two sons had married and had a beautiful daughter. The other was still single, but interested. On a magnificent summer day, they decided to attend a beer tasting. After the event, feeling somewhat tipsy, the wife of the first son came to pick up the brothers with her daughter.

Feeling hungry, the second son offered to buy dinner for his brothers family, and so the four stopped at a local restaurant. They ordered some food and drinks, and, as the daughter was barely more than a year old, she was to share her father's milkshake and meal.

After the drinks had arrived, but before the food, the first son looked at his daughter and saw her reaching for his milkshake. He happily brought the cup over to her and allowed her to wrap her lips around the straw. As she finished a deep drink he turned to his wife and began to pull the drink away. Just as he did so, the little girl reached out and grabbed the straw. Pulling it from the cup, she gently turned it over and stuck the opposite end into her mouth, sucking what was left out of the bottom."

"See? I knew it! She's smarter than we are!" a beaming, proud father turned to his wife.

"What?" She asked.

"How did she know to turn the straw around and suck the milkshake out of the bottom? She's never seen us do that. And her baby sitter would never give her anything like a milkshake."

The brother who was the girl's uncle watched the pride in the young parents' faces, and the answer to his own mother's question from years before suddenly dawned on him:

Maybe God exists. Maybe God doesn't exist. But assuming that such an entity or energy is there, to think that the "force" that could create all that is could care about being praised and worshipped is to assign one of the most base human emotions to something that has to be beyond such a thing. But what would provide meaning to any creator, as to any parent, is watching its creation, or child, exceed what it is meant to do, and do what it's not supposed to be able to do. Even so small an act as to figure out that some milkshake always gets stuck in the straw.

2 comments:

Marc Melanson said...

Larry,

That parable was fantastic! Really enjoyed reading it, don't stop writing!

The Velvet Cyclone said...

Thanks, Marc!