If My Life Were a Fable

Chicken Little came into the barnyard at full tilt shrieking, “The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!”  Henny Penney wasn’t buying any of it.  Just then, by a freak coincidence, a huge chunk of sky fell on Chicken Little and squashed her flat.

Henny Penney cried all night for Chicken Little, then kept crying all month for everybody else on planet Eaarth.  One day she went to her friend Turkey Lurkey, who was playing Grand Theft Auto at the time.

“I’m going to find a monastery or an ashram and ask God what to do.  Want to come with me?”

“Not me,” said Turkey Lurkey.

So, guided by Consumer Reports ratings, Henny Penny set off for a top-rated ashram.  After a year in the ashram God came by and said, “Noah, I’m going to destroy the world.  I want you to build an ark.  Here are the engineering specs.”  Henny Penny looked at God, mouth open, and tried to figure all of this out.

God then said, “Oh, Saint Peter must have misfiled this one.  You’re Henny Penny!  Henny, I’m going to overheat the world, and I want you to build these solar inventions.  Here are the engineering specs.”

Henny Penney returned looking extremely tired and grave to Turkey Lurkey, who was still playing GTA.  “Who will help me get these inventions patented so I can get them out to the world.  I don’t need the money myself, but we’ll need a social enterprise to run things.  I don't really trust Exxon these days.”

“Not I,” said Turkey Lurkey.

So Henny Penny became her own patent lawyer.  The real patent lawyers laughed at her.  She persisted and got good at the art.

A much older and shopworn Henny Penny came back to an older Turkey Lurkey, still playing the latest Grand Theft Auto.  “Who will help me get this business going?”

“Not I,” said Turkey Lurkey.

Henny Penny tried to start a business.  Being a sole proprietor was ten times more work and after a year she had a heart attack and died.  She left her patents to Turkey Lurkey, hoping against hope.  God dropped in on Turkey Lurkey.

“I have set before you life and death.  Choose life, therefore, that you and your children may live.”

“Not I,” said Turkey Lurkey.

--30--

That’s the fable.  My spiritual experiences have been pretty real to me.  Catastrophic climate change is pretty real to you.  The patents are pretty real to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Now, here’s the most questionable part of this life:  I’ve seen computer games where the non-player characters were dumb as stumps.  Why would any non-player character, being faced with death by climate, have a 99% chance of doing nothing and a 1% chance of writing a letter to Congress?

God replies that I must be very, very, very gentle with trying to move other people into a place where they can be useful.  All people have taken an extreme amount of hurts in their lives.