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One Tin Soldier
by lynn gipson One Tin Soldier Once upon a time there were two neighboring tribes of people, the Mountain People and the Valley People. The Valley People knew of some buried treasure on the mountain and wanted it. The Mountain People replied they would be happy to share it with them, but the Valley People wanted it all for themselves and went in and killed all the Mountain People. They then turned back the stone under which the treasure was buried, but instead of finding gold and jewels they saw only the words "peace on earth." That was the way the original story went. That story was about prejudice and greed. My story is about judgment: Once upon a time there were some Valley People (non believers) who wanted what the Mountain People (believers) had, and some who didn't particularly care one way or the other. The Mountain People were determined to share their treasure (faith) with all the people in the valley. The bad thing about living on a mountain is that in order to see the people in the valley, you have to look down on them. They didn't realize that you had to look them straight in the eye to really see them. One day there came a strange Tin Soldier riding a horse up the mountain and down through the valley, shouting, "You all have to get on the same level and speak to each other eye to eye!" So the Valley people came up a ways, and the Mountain people came down a ways, and they all met on level ground. Then they could all see into each other's souls. That meeting went something like this: The Valley People who wanted what the Mountain People had looked into their eyes and could tell right away who the true believers were. They saw a love, peace, grace, and compassion they could not see in some of the others. The Mountain people who were not true believers but thought they were could only see a mirror image when they looked into the eyes of the Valley People. They saw every thing they didn't like about themselves and projected it back onto the people they were looking at. Thus the Valley People told the Mountain people, "Some of you are not true believers, you are hypocrites!" The Mountain People who were the hypocrites said, "How dare you? You are but lowly sinners!" A war broke out and destroyed everyone on both sides. On the bloody morning after, one Tin Soldier rode away, and wept. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The moral of this story is unless I become a better Christian and see others through the grace filled eyes of Christ, they will rightly look at me and see only a hypocrite. Until I am a true believer in all the words of our Savior, I will look at non believers and see only a sinner. The image of one will cancel out the other, and the One who came to save us all will weep. I am a 61 year cancer survivor just recently become a writer. I write short stories, articles and poems of Christian or Spritual nature. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |