A follower of this blog commented on About page and said, “Hey, you used to write great, but the last couple of posts have been kinda boring. I miss your great writings. Past few posts are just a bit out of track! Come on!” I accept this as a wake-up call so I take note of how I am writing.
This can be because of the situation we are facing now. Although it is not a reason enough to write mediocre posts, but somehow it really affects the way I write. That is also why I had very few posts on Family Matters last month. Because I don’t want you to get affected with how I feel, I focused on my other blog, http://letslearnwriting.com where I write neutral articles.
Going back to the comment, I recalled a story of a parakeet from a book written by Warren Weirbe. Chirpee, a parakeet, is a pet of an old lady. The owner loves he bird so much; the bird, in return, sings her songs to the delight of her mistress.
One morning, the lady decided to clean Chirpee’s cage. While singing her song, the woman brought the nozzle of her vacuum cleaner near the bottom of her bird’s cage. Then something unexpected happened. The telephone rang. The woman looked to the direction of the telephone, and forgot that the vacuum cleaner is still on an in her hand, with its nozzle inside the cage.
But the most important thing that she forgot is that Chirpee is also in the cage. And in a split second, the humming of the vacuum cleaner was changed to a “swooppphhh!” and after another second resumed its humming. The telephone continues to ring, so the old lady decided to turn off the cleaner and answer the call. It was a wrong number, so she went back to what she was doing.
To her horror, Chirpee is not in the cage anymore. It does not take a deep thought to realize what happened to the bird. So the woman search the dust bag of the vacuum cleaner. And there is Chirpee, covered with soot and her own dung, shocked because she still cannot understand what happened to her world.
Out of deep love and affection, the old woman, carrying Chirpee in her hands, hurried to the kitchen and turned on the faucet. She put the bird under running water to clean her thoroughly. After a few minutes, the woman realized that Chirpee is soaking wet. So she rushed into her room, still carrying the poor parakeet, got her blow drying, plugged it in, turned it on to full blast and blow dried Chirpee. In only a matter of minutes the woman succeeded to get Chirpee to her “shining glory” as she was before.
Every time the old woman looks at her bird, she ask herself, “What’s the matter with my Chirpee? She does not sing anymore.” Who can sing, when after being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, was rushed under a running water and blow dried? She also got that shocked look in her eyes.
“We give our children what will help them develop. We train them as we see them. When one child is stubbornly disobeying us, we discipline him, because he needs correction. When another child is hungry, we give him food, because that’s what he needs. We should not discipline all our children, because one of them disobeys us. Neither do we give bread to everyone even if only one child is hungry.”
The teacher agreed. “Individual differences play a big role on how we deal with our children. In the Bible, Isaac and Rebecca had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau was Isaac’s ‘favorite’, because he is a hunter. Rachel’s ‘favorite’ is Jacob, because he loves to do household chores. This led to deception and taking advantage of the other, and threatened the stability of Isaac’s family. If you were Isaac’s neighbor, what will you tell him?”
When all have shared their thought, I invited them to pray.