At the time I was writing about connection, I received a letter from my favorite aunt in the mail. She runs a non-profit ministry and in her letter she shared the parable that follows. You may have seen it floating around the internet. I thought it was timely and poignant and share it here.

 

A mouse looked through a crack in the wall to see
the farmer and his wife open a package.

"What food might this contain?" The mouse wondered –
he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the
warning.

"There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a
mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head
and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave
concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I
cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is
a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the
house!"

The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry,
Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but
pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."

The mouse turned to the cow and said "There is a
mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the
house!"

The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but
it’s no skin off my nose."

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and
dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the
house — like the sound of a mousetrap catching its
prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In
the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake
whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her
to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken
soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard
for the soup’s main ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and
neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.
To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many
people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow
slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the
wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem
and think it doesn’t concern you, remember:

We are all involved in this journey called life. When one
of us is threatened, we are all at risk for each of us is a vital
thread in the tapestry of the whole.

Our lives are woven together for a reason.