Deacon John Writes:
I hope you like this story from India with its message at the end: An old man used to sit and pray every morning under a large tree on the bank of a river. One morning while he looked at the river flowing past, he noticed a large scorpion caught in the current, floating helplessly along. The roots of the tree went right into the river, and the scorpion got tangled up in them. The more it tried to struggle free, the more tangled up it became. Because it couldn’t help itself, the old man reached out his hand to free the captive scorpion. But as soon as he touched it, the scorpion lifted its tail, and stung him. The old man licked his hand, and then started to reach out to the scorpion again, to try to help free it. While he did this, a young man who was walking past, stopped to watch him. He said: “Don’t do that, you stupid old man! You’ll get stung! Why bother risk getting hurt in order to save an ugly, vicious creature?” The old man, holding his hand because of the pain, turned to the young man, and said: “You are right, I will probably get stung again, and it will hurt; I may get hurt so bad that I will die. But think of this: It is the nature of a scorpion to sting. Why should I make that the reason for giving up my own nature, which is to be kind and to help to forgive and to care?