It's Sunday, December 27th. It's a lovely sunny day here and I loved catching up with Tony...
Also, I finished Paulo Coelho's delightful 'Novel of Temptation,' (The Devil and Miss Prym) and was so moved by one of the stories, I wanted to share it:
"[Ahab] invited his friends to supper and cooked a succulent piece of meat for them. Suddenly he realized there was no salt.
So Ahab called to his son:'Go to the village and buy some salt, but pay a fair price for it: neither too much nor too little.'
His son was surprised: ' I can understand why I shouldn't pay too much for it, Father, but if I can bargain them down, why not pay a bit less?'
'That would be the sensible thing to do in a big city, but in a small village like ours it could spell the beginning of the end.'
The boy left without asking any further questions.
However, Ahab's guests, who had overheard their conversation, wanted to know why they should not buy the salt more cheaply if they could.
Ahab replied:'The only reason anyone would sell salt more cheaply than usual would be because he was desperate for money. And anyone who took advantage of that situation would be showing a lack of respect for the sweat and struggle of the man who labored to produce it.'
'But such a small thing couldn't possibly destroy a village.'
'In the beginning, there was only a small amount of injustice abroad in the world, but everyone who came afterwards added their portion, always thinking it was very small and unimportant, and look where we have ended up today.'" (pps.48-49)
I am an admitted salt-a-holic.
Maybe this is why I love this story?
Because it includes salt ....and concepts of integrity.
Perhaps one resolution for this coming year will be for me to examine any erosion of my integrity that has contributed to:'where we have ended up today.'