"What?" his father exclaimed. "That pillow was worth a hundred gold ducats at least."
"That's what a wealthy merchant saw," the boy said, "but being greedy, he offered me fifty. I got a
better offer than that. A farmer's wife offered me one piece of silver."
"Are you mad?" his father said. "When is one piece of silver worth more than fifty gold ducats?"
"When it's offered out of love," the boy replied. "If she had given me more, she wouldn't have been
Able to feed her children. Yet I got a better offer than that. I saw a peasant girl washing the steps of
a church who offered me this penny."
"You have lost your wits completely," his father said, shaking his head. "When is a penny worth
more than one piece of silver?"
"When it's offered out of devotion," the boy replied. "For she was laboring for her Lord, and the
Steps of His house seemed softer than any pillow. Poorer than the poorest, she still had time for
God. And that is why I offered her the pillow."
At this the wise father smiled and embraced his son, and with a tear in his eye he murmured, "You
have learned well."
Breaking Free
All this hysteria, all this commotion
Time, space, energy are just a notion
What we have conceptualized we have created
All those loved, all those hated
Where is the beginning, where's the end
Time's arrow, so difficult to bend
Those broken promises, what they meant
Those love letters, never sent
But The Heart Said No
They saw the poor living in cardboard shacks, so they knocked the shacks down and built
projects. Huge blocks of cement and glass towered over asphalt parking lots. Somehow it wasn't
much like home, even home in a shack. "What do you expect?" they asked impatiently. "You're too
poor to live like us. Until you can do better for yourselves, you should be grateful, shouldn't you?"
The head said yes, but the heart said no.
They needed more electricity in the city, so they found a mountain stream to dam. As the waters
Rose, dead rabbits and deer floated by; baby birds too young to fly drowned in the nest while
mother birds cried helplessly. "It's not a pretty sight," they said, "but now a million people can run
their air conditioners all summer. That's more important than one mountain stream, isn't it?" The
Head said yes, but the heart said no.
They saw oppression and terrorism in a far-off land, so they made war against it. Bombs reduced
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