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Saturday, April 27, 2013

A Cautionary Parable of Persecution

Disclaimer: This is fiction. It's a parable, a story intended to illustrate a point. And, as anyone knows, a really good parable doesn't need to be explained. You'll figure it out.
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I was arrested the other day and here I sit in jail, completely baffled about my crime. I'm going back over it in my mind and can't figure out what I did wrong.

I'm an open-minded individual. I think that we should love others without limits. I think we should embrace grace, that we shouldn't impose our views on others. I think that condemning people for how they are is wrong and I favor loving others exactly as they are. That's my motto. That's how I am.

So when my baby was born, I embraced grace. I refused to impose my views on this little one or condemn him for how he was. I sought to love him just as he was. So when he came into this world naked, I left him naked. I didn't try to impose my views of "don't poop here" or "urine should be contained" on this little guy. No, I embraced him as he was, a free spirit. Even when other mothers glared at me for the naked baby in the grocery store, I proudly ignored their intolerant stares and went on with my lovely little boy.

He proved himself to be a selfish little boy as all babies tend to be, but that didn't stop me. I loved him for who he was, not for what he was. And when he drowned the kitten we gave him because he thought it was fun, I understood that no one was perfect and my narrow ideas of "kittens shouldn't be drowned for fun" wasn't necessarily a view to impose on my child. No, we cannot be so narrow as to view life as a series of rules and regulations. We need to be free to pursue happiness. Just because his happiness didn't correspond to mine was no reason to limit him.

He had no interest in school, so I didn't send him. He wasn't born with books, so why inflict them on him? (Besides, I suspect there were no schools around that would let him run around naked like that. Narrow-minded bigots.) So I let him learn from his own life experiences because life is its own teacher. I suspect he might have gained from being taught not to run out in the street, but I figured that out too late when the car hit him.

And when the authorities found out how I had loved this little boy and embraced him for all he was without interference or judgment or intolerance, they arrested me. I exemplified what our culture is calling the epitome of goodness by loving my boy just as he was, and now I'm sitting in jail on charges of cruelty and child abuse. How can this possibly be? What's wrong with this narrow-minded society?

3 comments:

Neil said...

Nicely done!

Stan said...

Unfortunately, my wild claim that "a really good parable doesn't need to be explained" is either false or this isn't a really good parable because the point can and will be missed. So, let's give it a shot.

The argument is that we need to accept people as they are without judgment. Tolerance, that what is called for. The parable illustrates how love does not "accept people as they are without judgment", but, indeed, always seeks for the best for the loved one. Sometimes that is not the direction that the loved one is taking and sometimes the loving thing to do is to attempt to intervene. (And, unfortunately, this "parable" is not as far out as it appears. I've seen stories from parents who are pretty close to actually doing what this fictional parent did.)

In the end, it illustrates the cognitive dissonance of "love means accepting people as they are without judgment" and the obvious fact that every loving parent attempts to form their children into something they are not naturally. I suspect that those who miss the point will also deny the cognitive dissonance and write it off as missing the point.

Anonymous said...

I think you made your point fairly clear, very nice job and good imagination. Although, I think what you said in your explanation is extremely true, if you don't explain it, people who disagree will just brush it off and take it as you are exaggerating too much.