“BOWLED” OVER !
A
Christmas Story
Once upon a
time a little boy lived with his parents, poor peasants, in a simple hut in the
woods. The parents loved their child, and he returned their love and was a good
son to them, young as he was.
Also living
with the family was the grandfather of the little boy. He was old and frail and no longer able to
work. He sat all day in his chair, and
when he came to table he was so shaky that he could hardly eat, and often made
a great deal of mess around his place.
One day his trembling hand caused him to drop and break his platter and
spill all the food on the ground.
The boy’s
mother was furious. She shouted at the
poor man, shook him and said that henceforth he would eat all his meals from a
wooden bowl as he was not fit to eat from a plate like normal people.
Ashamed and
humiliated, the old man withdrew from the table to a corner, where, isolated and lonely, he ate only from a
wooden bowl like a baby.
One day the
little boy’s parents went out to do some Christmas shopping and on their return
noticed their little boy with a knife and a block of wood. Curious, they asked,
“What are you doing ? What are you
making ?”
“I’m making
bowls for you both to eat out of, when you are old, so that no one will shout
at you”, he replied in innocent simplicity.
His parents
were bowled over, shocked into a realisation of what they had done. They burst
into tears, embraced the old man and drew him back into the family circle,
where he lived out his days, cherished and honoured. Every Christmas, the two
little unfinished wooden bowls were
placed lovingly under the Christmas tree as a touching reminder of the change
of heart.
“For Wisdom opened the months of the dumb and made eloquent
the tongues of babes” (Book of Wisdom: 10, 20).
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