The oyster pearl
Parables and Illustrations for Values Education |
Marina was a real oyster. A snail creeping, not a being to live deep. As all the of his race, he had sought a rock bottom to firmly hold on to it. When you got it, believed have found their destination clear allowing it to live without problems its existence of oyster. Peaceful, happy life without special setbacks would live a.
But God had set its sights on Marina and had chosen to make it especially valuable. One day, Dios settled in Marina your grain of sand. Literally: a grain of sand. It was during a storm of depth. Those that almost do not cause waves on the surface, but remove the bottom of the oceans.
When the grain of sand fell in the oyster, Marina was closed violently as it did whenever something strange came over her. This is the mode used oysters to feed: all that comes into your life is trapped, disintegrated and assimilated. If the foreign object is not digestible they expelled it out.
But Marina, even though strove, could not digest or expel that grain of sand that is was sinking him deeper in his flesh. The pain was unbearable. Trying to think of other things, forget the pain, but I could not. It was always there, occupying the place of their existence, as if his life had become a pain.
Anyone would have thought that the only way her remaining Navy was desperately fighting the pain, surround him with the pus of bitterness, live bitter, always complaining, making hell his own life and the lives of those who were with her.
But the oysters have the extraordinary quality of producing solid substances. This quality is normally dedicated to manufacture a defensive, rugged on the outside and smooth on the inside shell. But Marina dedicated to the manufacture of a Pearl. Slowly and with the best of itself, was surrounding the two cents of their pain, and its around nuclear began a beautiful Pearl. It became this task in illusion, in mission. No longer pain cared because it was the source of his hope and his dream.
Many years after the death of Marina, fell a few divers to the bottom of the sea. When they brought it to the surface, they found in her most beautiful Pearl had ever seen. To see her shine with all the colors of the sky and the sea, no one doubted the valuable thing which had been suffered from marine life
(Free version of a text of Mamerto Menapace).
Let us also remember the story of those two seeds that had been dumped in the Groove. «I want to grow – said the first - I want my roots to sink deep into the soil and that my kids break the Earth's crust that I have up.» I want to deploy my tender shoots like flags and announce the arrival of spring with my arms... I want to feel the heat of the Sun and the freshness of the dew on my face. I want to live and give life.
Then it grew.
The second seed said: «I have great fear. If I leave my roots go down, I don't know what I'll find in the dark. When I open my way through the soil, I hurt my fragile members, you will punish me the wind, the Sun Fire will hurt me and anyone could stepping on me or start me. I'll be quiet, huddled in the warmth of the Groove, until you see more clearly what I do»
Then he waited.
Came a few birds, began to dig for food, and one of them found the seed that was expected and swallowed it is.
One of the major flaws of the current education system is that it has neglected the formation of the will and the ability of risk. We live in a hedonistic, vain, maudlin, culture that shuns the effort, sacrifice, the maturity of itself. Everything that does not produce pleasure or immediate gratification is rejected by useless. That is why we are raising generations of young superficial, incapable of sustained efforts, easy prey of dealers and traders who praise his ego and tame his rebelliousness to become mere consumers.
An education that rescue effort and the expiration value is urgent. They are storms and high winds which form the best sailors. «If the grain of wheat doesn't die, it gives fruits...» An overly easy life raises frail, to defeat any difficulty or problem. Great men made his life in sacrifice, finalized his will at the expiration, rose and returned to raise in their falls. The great scientist Pasteur suffered a stroke that left him almost invalid, overcoming this problem with determination, continued working and researching for 28 years. The vaccine discovered was more due to his tenacity and effort than intelligence. Milton was blind and gave their children his work Summit «Lost paradise». Demosthenes was tongue-tied and bowed his voice becoming pebbles in his mouth and exercising his oratory against an angry sea. It thus became the best speaker of antiquity.
It is what he said Bolivar: «art beat is learned from the difficulties». So that schools become men and women responsible for forges, free and generous, they must include in its educational proposal the continuous exercise of the maturity of themselves. Wanting to students does not pamper them or pimp them, but encourage them to give the best of themselves, to undertake the daily fight against laziness and selfishness that imprison them on the ground and prevent that raise their wings on a freedom flight. Hence the importance of activities such as sport, the retreats, hiking... so appropriate to forge the heart and determination, effort and maturity learning to exercise.
We teach our young people to be strong, without losing the tenderness and compassion.