Parable of the Week


The Peacock, The Bowerbird
In a wooded glen lived a Peacock and a Bowerbird.
The Peacock pranced to a clearing in the glen, fanned his brilliant tail-feathers of rainbow eyes, and shook them all about, yelling, "I am the greatest bird in the world! Come to me, maidens!"
Around and around he danced in the glen, shaking his beautiful feathers -- but so violently did he shake them, that several popped out of his behind, and fell to the ground. Yet so enamored was the Peacock at his own glory, that he cared not about the gaps in his plumage, even thinking them improvements -- and the maiden birds flew overhead, laughed, and winged on.
The Bowerbird, meanwhile, hardly noticeable in his nondescript, drab feathers, silently built a roomy nest with a smooth, curved arch of twigs overhead. He worked every day, and when his bower was done, stood silently to one side, and waited. Maidens flew down and stepped into his handiwork, and regarded the fine weave of the twigs in its arch. The most beautiful of all the maiden birds was very pleased -- and remained in his bower as his mate.
Yet the Bowerbird had crowed not one word of himself -- nor shaken about a single tail-feather.
Thus, obsession is never more dangerous than when its subject is oneself.


June 27, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton, Ph.D., Founder and Executive Director, The Circle of Reason, Inc. All rights reserved.

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A fellowship who believe communal commitment to reason will transform the world.

No culture in history has used communal commitment to reason as a way to improve the world as well as our individual lives. We believe this approach to solving irrationality by the human race can lead to a better outcome than what has come before.

Our goal is to institute local and virtual congregations, or circles, of those who believe in the power of reason to gradually but inexorably identify and expunge irrationality from our worldly lives and from local society, campaign and governmental policies, and global society.

A fellowship who exclude none.

We welcome all who seek clarity of mind, regardless of their present beliefs or creeds. Faith can even harmonize with reason, when we accept the gift of the mind to better understand, live in, and shepherd this world. Consequently, the Circle is unique in inviting everyone, including both the religious and the non-religious, into an additional shared haven -- a truly ecumenical fellowship to make the world we've all inherited a saner place.

Beliefs

The Affirmation of The Circle of Reason
We believe in the power of reasoning and logical minds, when present in sufficient numbers, to reduce and someday eliminate all ills on Earth caused by human irrationality -- to prevent war, government corruption, environmental destruction, institutionalized poverty and discrimination. Our purpose is to so change the world within the next 50 generations -- by encouraging people to commit to local congregations of faith in the ability of reasoning thought to save our world and bring our next major step in moral evolution. We welcome all who seek clarity of mind, regardless of present beliefs or creed, to The Circle of Reason.
January 1, 2000 C.E.

The 3 Tenets of Reason
Reality's Acceptance
Assumption's Denial
Emotion's Mastery

The 3 Guides of Action
What is, is -- Reality denied causes wrong action; Reality accepted causes right action.
What is not, is not -- Incorrect assumptions, non-reality accepted as reality, cause wrong action; Questioned assumptions cause right action.
What is or is not, is paramount -- Emotion unmastered by reason causes wrong action; Emotion's mastery by reason causes right action.

The 3 Paths to Right Action
Accept what is, reject what is not, leave open what may be.
Root out incorrect assumptions and their signpost -- contradictions.
Let reason, not emotion, be the final arbiter of your actions.

The 3 Paths to Wrong Action
Reject what is, accept what is not, reject or accept what may be.
Act based on unconsidered assumptions, and ignore their contradictions.
Let emotion rule your actions.

The Paragons of Reason and Unreason
The Paragon of Reason -- Objective, Open-minded, and Calm.
The Paragon of Unreason -- Subjective, Close-minded, and Emotional.

The Meditation of Reason
In Reality's denial was I blind -- by Reality's Acceptance do I see.
In Assumption's acceptance was I bowed -- by Assumption's Denial do I stand.
In Emotion's surrender did I stampede -- by Emotion's Mastery do I stride.
By these three do I drink from the depths, tread beyond the horizon, and reach for the zenith of the World.

The Circle Thanksgiving -- An Ecumenical Thanksgiving
Let us bow our heads in prayer or contemplation.
We give thanks for the gift of the Mind, through which our purpose shall be envisioned.
We give thanks for the gift of the Will, through which our purpose shall be manifest.
We give thanks for the gift of the Heart, through which our purpose shall be ennobled.
And we give thanks for the gift of the Universe, through which our purpose shall be magnified.
So say we all.

Parables

Our archive of past weekly excerpts from the forthcoming book, The Parables of Reason © 2009, by Frank H. Burton, Executive Director, The Circle of Reason, Inc. All rights reserved. Royalties from the author's book sales will after taxes be donated in their entirety to the non-profit The Circle of Reason, Inc. Excerpts from this web archive may be reproduced electronically with author attribution and a link to this website; may not be reproduced in print without written consent of the author; and may not be reproduced in any form for profit.
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The Totalitarian, The Free
Twin countries nestled against each other in the womb.
The first country, at the insistence of its army, installed a charismatic dictator.
Garbed in green fatigues, he told the people what kind of work they must do, and who would benefit from it.
He was overthrown and replaced by another dictator, who, regaled in satin robes, told them what kind of belief they must have.
He, too, was overthrown, and replaced by yet a third dictator, who, cloaked in a white hood, told them what kind of color people they must marry.
The country teetered like a refugee dragged on his final, long march.
And in the dark of night, fearing the knock at their door, never did its people know peace in their beds.
But the second country, at the insistence of its own charismatic leader, installed a Constitution of individual, religious, racial, social, and environmental rights, protected by a representational government.
Then the leader hung up his pressed suit and retired to his farm.
This country did not teeter toward enslavement and persecution of its people for what work they did, what belief they held, or what color they were.
It grew innovative, strong and free.
And in the dark of night, fearing no knock at their door, always did its people know peace in their beds.
Thus, one can be chained in many ways, but it is all one chain -- upon reasoned choice.


June 20, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the Iranian protesters, young, old, conservative, and progressive, who share one ideal: that their voices be heard. Neda!
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The Preacher, The Listener
Just married was the cosseted babe of the family.
Her heart thumped when thinking of married life, and she confessed so to her sisters in a small, empty room off the narthex of their church, where the wedding party had congregated.
"I worry so much about how my husband may treat me, and what he'll expect of me!" she cried, twisting her wedding ring.
Her eldest sister peered over her hymnal glasses archly, to see her little sister's face. Then, like a budgie tantalized by a peach, in a staring, wide-eyed sway she began to regale the new bride with horrifying tales of browbeaten wives that she'd overheard in her years (of which there'd been many.)
The bride was not mollified -- indeed, she began to turn as white as her gown.
Then the middle sister intervened.
"Forget our eldest's tall tales! Remember, she doesn't know your husband as well as you do!"
Touching her sister's hand gently to calm her, she continued, "So tell me, what do you think your husband wants from your marriage? And what do you want yourself, dear sister?"
So with a sigh of relief, the young bride debated her own recollections, hopes and fears out loud to her sibling.
And with her sister's calm questioning, the bride's train of thought gently unfurled, and she knew anew what she had known, unbeknownst, all along.
Thus, sometimes you must preach with your ear.


June 13, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the youth of Iran, who yesterday voted for a new beginning in world relations, and to Pakistani cleric and non-violence proponent, Dr. Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi; and in admonishment to all those, like James von Brunn, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, Scott Roeder, and the Taliban assassins of Mufti Naeemi, who seek to silence rather than participate in reasoning dialogue.
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The Bridge Burner, The Bridge Builder
Deep was the chasm that split in twain the land.
A calm and friendly man wondered what manner of people lived across the chasm -- and so he built a bridge to span it.
For weeks he toiled, hammering pitons and hurling grapplers and ropes across the ravine, then slowly knotting boards into the suspended cords -- for the feet of the would-be travelers who eagerly gathered to watch him build.
Yet a second man, who lived in a lean-to on the opposite side of the ravine, had picked his small parcel of land to be as far from humanity as he could get. Only facing the abyss did he feel comfortable.
Never had he cared to know what manner of people lived across the chasm -- nor even, for that matter, what kind lived in his own land.
As he scrutinized the builder's bridge taking shape, and the eager prospective travelers climbing the hills to the ravine's edge to watch, he grew eager himself -- toward a darker purpose.
One black night he stole to the edge of the ravine with a single candle.
With a curse spit from bitter lips, he torched the ropes of the bridge. Although the cords could suspend a dozen oxen in the air, they could not withstand the flame of malice.
So were the long days of bridge-building undone by one moment of bridge-burning.
Thus, calmness, like wood, undergirds all -- while anger, like flame, strews from all but ashes.


June 6, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama's Cairo Address to the Muslim World, and in admonishment to Osama Bin Laden's address to the same. We need but a mustard seed of faith to create a new, peaceful world -- but it must be faith in each other.
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The One Side, The Other Side
Bestriding the fence bordering two men's lands grew a spreading pecan tree.
Great heaps of nuts fell onto the sward beneath its branches.
One of the men saw the other gathering pecans that had fallen on the far side of the fence. He ran to the fence, breathlessly shouting, "Stop! Those are my tree's nuts!"
Fulminating red, the other man grasped the fence, leaned over it and yelled back, "These pecans fell on my side of the fence, so they're mine!"
As the two men raged, their wives hurried over and whispered to each other, hand in hand.
Then they turned to their husbands and, plucking their sleeves, shushed them, saying, "It's one's tree, but the other's land! If you can't bring yourselves to share your nuts, you will do whatever the local ordinances say is the legal resolution -- so call City Hall and ask them what it is!"
Thus, there are usually two sides to an argument -- and you must consider both.


May 31, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the memory of Kansas family-planning doctor and abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, who was gunned down today, at church, by a radical religious-fundamentalist anti-abortionist, yet who never wavered in serving women's reproductive rights in spite of anti-abortionists' petitioning a baseless grand jury investigation into his medical practice, burning down his medical clinic, and even previously shooting him in an earlier assassination attempt; and in admonishment of Prayer and Action News and its publisher Dave Leach, who calls for "justifiable homicide" of abortion providers, and of Operation Rescue and its founder, Randall Terry -- who said he was less concerned about Dr. Tiller's assassination than that it would be used to "intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions." By respectively calling abortion providers "mass murderers" in blatant disregard of legal, ethical and religious-freedom exceptions for non-viable fetuses and embryos, and inciting the homicide of these health-care providers, Randall Terry's Operation Rescue and Dave Leach's Prayer and Action News are morally responsible, and should be held legally liable, for every murderous and terroristic act by the radical acolytes their sophistry has gestated.
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The Bigoted Parent, The Friendly Child
Hating all who had different-colored skin than he, a man believed without question that they were impulsive, murderous, unthinking fools.
All these things he tried to teach his only daughter.
But his daughter was quiet and thoughtful.
She tried, but could not see what her father was talking about.
Instead, she saw that her differently colored classmates at school were just as thoughtful, kind and smart as anyone, and perhaps even saintlier, given how shabbily they were treated by some of the teachers and other grownups who thought like her father.
So the daughter decided to befriend all of her classmates, regardless of their skin color or ability, or even their attitudes about her.
As she grew in years, so too did she grow in the esteem of all who crossed her path in life.
All but in her father's.
He rejected her for her friendship with others of different colors. Never did he see or speak to his own grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who, over the generations, became a happy mix of all different hues, beliefs and creeds, tied together by the strongest of cords -- tolerance of uniqueness.
Thus, to truly see a person you must open your eyes.


May 23, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the citizens of Philadelphia, Mississippi, who this week elected their first African-American Mayor, James Young; and to the memory of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman -- who believed, 45 years ago, that "change is gonna come!"
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The Tragic, The Comic
Marriage to a widower with seven children was Fate's blessing.
But the young wife's husband died, leaving her alone to raise all seven.
She boiled in anger and fear, grew bitter at her responsibility, and proclaimed the tragedy of her life to all her neighbors.
Her friends deserted her, and her stepchildren feared her, soon leaving for lives of their own.
She shriveled into an old, angry spinster, cheated of her youth and beauty.
Fate being wedded to Irony, in a neighboring village a young woman received the same blessing.
Her new husband likewise died soon thereafter, leaving her alone to raise all seven stepchildren.
She gazed at them often, but, instead of growing angry, fearful and bitter, as she sometimes was tempted to do in moments of doubt and difficulty, she decided instead to chuckle at what Fate had cast her way.
She committed to being their mother, and to love all seven fiercely, proclaiming to all her neighbors that her husband had left her seven great gifts.
Her friends remained at her side, and her stepchildren grew tall, happy and strong, staying close to her all their lives.
She became a revered family head, radiating happiness at the miraculous cloth she'd spun from the loose threads of Fate.
Thus, fate is spun by emotion into cobwebs, and by reason into silk.


May 16, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated in sympathy but cautionary exhortation to the parents of Daniel Hauser, Sleepy Eye, Minnesota's 13-year-old Hodgkin's lymphoma patient and potential future Nemenhah leader -- and to the parents of all ill children who wish to believe, contrary to all evidence, that "alternative medicine" is a true alternative.
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The Boulder, The Dodger
Peaking a large hill sat a rotund boulder.
Below, on the slope of the hill, perched neighboring shanties wherein lived two old men.
Every day, as the men put out folding chairs to sit in the sun and watch the day pass by, the first old man pointed his chair downhill toward the passing cars and bicyclists below.
But the second old man pointed his chair sideways, to keep one eye on the peak of the hill.
The first old man needled him. "Old coot, why do you always stare up at that boulder?"
"I can't help myself!" the second old man cried, "I just know it will crush me someday!"
The first old man laughed over his shoulder. "You'll hear it coming early enough to dodge it! And it has hundreds of paths to take down this hill. Why are you so worried it'll aim straight for your old bones?"
But the second old man could never stop staring back at it, and could never quit trembling at even the faintest noise from above.
And so, one day he himself toppled over and rolled, dead, down the hill.
Many years later the boulder did indeed dislodge, rolling backwards a few feet out of sight behind the top of the hill -- all while the first old man remained sound asleep, undisturbed, in his bed.
Thus, the most terrible things in our lives usually never happen. -- via Montaigne


May 9, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Car, The Steering Wheel
Exit the autobahn by the pine grove, and on the right is the blanched, empty shell of an auto repair shop.
Walking down the exit ramp and through the pines, a man of little means once approached the shop mechanic and offered half his meager savings to repair his decrepit car, broken down on the autobahn.
The mechanic straightly aided the poor man.
Zooming into the shop, gunning his engine and spinning his wheels on the gravel, a rich man also once approached the mechanic for a minor repair.
But the rich man taunted and insulted the mechanic -- offering him only a pittance to repair his luxury car, refusing to pay fair price, and calling his shop a "pig sty."
The mechanic's red face became deadly quiet and white, and his fists lowered to his side.
He murmured to the rich man, "Whatever you say," then turned to repair the problem -- but also detached the steering wheel from its linkage.
So did the mechanic lie to the car owner's face, "You're all fixed," then stand back and brim with vengeful glee.
The rich man snatched up his keys, hopped behind the wheel, raced the engine, jammed the clutch, and smashed his luxury car straight into the pine grove.
Thus, a lie is the gift of a hurtling engine with no steering.


May 2, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the honest politicians who speak the truth -- and in admonishment to U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), whose casual lies about "Democrat" Swine Flu epidemics (the last was during the Republican Ford Presidency); FDR passing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff (it was Republican President Hoover); "radical Muslims" congregating to celebrate the election of Keith Ellison as the first Muslim U.S. Representative (they were religious leaders attending a national conference, at which Rep. Ellison, D-MN, was invited to speak); and the "anti-American" views of opposition leaders (not simply "Democratic" or "liberal" views) seek to nurture the dark changeling of American civil life.
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The Kite, The Plane
Central Park made the metropolis great.
There two children played -- a boy with a kite, and a girl with a toy plane.
The boy ran into the breeze, unspooling the string tethering his kite, which sailed high into the grey sky, gliding on the wind above him.
"Look!" the boy yelled. "Look how high my kite can go!"
But suddenly the churning wind switched direction, and his kite plummeted like a stone, and was dashed into pieces at the boy's feet.
He plopped down in the grass, and cried.
The girl stood still against the wind, holding her small plane with its long, sturdy wings and battery-powered propeller, then placed her plane on the ground and stepped back.
Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew a small remote control, and pressed its button.
The plane's propeller erupted, buzzing, into life -- and the plane rolled down the grass on its undercarriage.
Then the girl pulled back a lever on the remote control, and the plane, too, sailed high into the grey sky, gliding on the wind.
But when the turbulent breezes shifted direction, so did the little girl shift her rudder.
The plane channeled the crosswinds, and flew on.
Thus, emotion is the wind you must channel to fly.


April 25, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the first responders' battle to prevent a swine flu pandemic -- and to the people's battle against fear of it.
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The Chain, The Leash
Wooden slats were the boundary of his green universe.
All his life, the dog had lived and played in the large backyard of an urban home nestled in the center of busy streets.
Day and night, the dog's ears perked up at the mysterious and exciting noises and scents around him.
Squeals preceded clouds of bitter rubber smell.
Hissing static, voices and rhythmic thumping blew acrid wafts of burnt leaf.
And always there was the great rushing and honking of unseen, oily metallic-smelling behemoths.
The dog often wondered why he was always kept tethered by his collar at night to a post buried in the middle of the yard.
He yearned to break free.
And so, one night, the dog pulled and bit his tether so hard that it tore -- and fell away.
Free from all restraint, the dog yelped in disbelieving joy.
He dashed around and around the yard. None called him to heel.
Then, smelling and hearing the night, he raced to the end of the universe and leaped.
Sailing over the high, backyard fence, he fell, breathlessly panting, into the heart of mystery.
A squeal of rubber tires and blinding lights rushed down upon him, and, in death, he took wing.
Thus, know when you are chained and when you are leashed.


April 18, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the U.S. Justice Department's repeal, and public release, of former CIA secret prison interrogation procedures -- and in admonishment of the Bush administration's unleashing, as U.S. policy, non-judicial detention and torture.
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The Ant, The Cricket
In a small backyard dwelled an Ant and a Cricket.
The Ant's industry provided homes and well-stocked pantries for her large family -- while the Cricket's mellifluous song brought joy to all who heard it.
The Ant lived a long life of comfort, warmth, loved ones and many children.
The Cricket lived but a brief life. Yet in spite of his sad ending in hunger and cold, he gave to the Ant -- and to all who'd heard his song -- the memory of dulcet beauty and mystery in their lives.
Thus, industry and art both have value -- one to the body, the other to the spirit.


April 11, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Herbicide, The Fertilizer
Verdancy dwelt amidst banality.
Blooming within a seemingly endless suburban tract of clipped-grass lawns was a profuse garden, in the yard of an old curmudgeon.
Each day that remained to him, he carefully tended his ferns and flowers rare -- orchid, iris, bleeding heart, money plant, lamb's ear, impatiens, delphinium, artemisia, salvia, snapdragon and honeysuckle.
But one day, the old man rose not from bed -- and was laid to rest forever beneath his bed of flowers.
Two grandsons had he, who each inherited half of the verdant garden, to do with as each pleased.
One grandson stood before his half-garden, gazed upon the verdant profusion, and, a frown growing in his face, glanced beyond to the mowed grass lawns stretching to the horizon.
Looking down at his feet, he poked the toe of one polished black shoe at a knee-high plant with deeply hued, swollen blossoms -- and fell back startled, as the impatiens blossoms popped, exploding seeds all over his pants.
He angrily brushed off the seeds and stood, his fists clenching as he murmured at the garden, "Who did my grandfather dream he was, to grow such a thing here?"
The next day, the grandson returned -- with a bottle of herbicide in his hands.
With joyful malice he sprayed it on his half-garden -- with a final, extra helping of poison for the impatiens that had trumped his own impatience.
And so his garden withered -- its living rainbows become brittle, brown husks. The vacant earth that remained was later re-sodded with a mowed grass lawn.
Yet, so too did the other grandson come, to stand before his own half-garden.
He too gazed upon its verdant profusion. He squatted down and stared into the face of a snapdragon blossom, and lightly pinched its cheeks. It opened its toothy mouth and spoke to him, in a language too faint to hear.
Yet a calmness and purpose such as he had never known draped itself upon his shoulders.
He laid his open hand flat onto the green moss and black soil. "Grandfather," he said, "I see your dream."
And the next day, the grandson returned with a tin of water and fertilizer, to protect and nurture this garden, this dream.
Thus, be not a reaver but a tiller of souls.


April 4, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Principled, The Implemented
Voting was their fix.
Whenever the neighbors attended rallies, the two women found they'd voted for the same candidates.
But one terrible day, the city was flooded with refugees from a distant country sundered by revolution.
The refugees spoke another language, lived a different culture, and practiced an alien religion -- and many of the locals refused them jobs, cursing them in the streets.
Both women agreed it was shameful, the poor reception the refugees had received.
Yet as one woman talked about it, the other acted.
The first woman proclaimed noble principles -- but was frightened by the refugees' unabated misery. She hid behind her locked front door when they came to her house begging for food, and stared at their backs through the blinds of her windows as they trudged away.
When locals called on her to serve at the schoolhouse, she profusely apologized, but claimed she was too busy to volunteer -- then sat on the couch in her empty home, staring into the fireplace.
The second woman lived her principles rather than merely proclaimed them.
She too was frightened by the misery she saw -- but when the refugees came to her home for food, she took a deep breath, opened the door, welcomed them into her home, and fed them what she could spare.
She walked one night every week to the schoolhouse, to teach the refugees how to read, write and speak her language.
Both women held the same principles, as glorious as a butterfly -- yet, in one, as lifeless as an insect abandoned in a jar.
Thus, principles cannot live behind glass.


March 28, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the "Sandbaggers," the over 20,000 Midwest volunteers from every corner of North Dakota and Minnesota, and from states as far away as Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma and West Virginia, who converged on Fargo and Moorhead to fill over 3 million sandbags and hold the levees against the highest Red River flood in recorded history.
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The Physicians, The Antiseptic
Once the health of the body was entrusted to experts of the "physick."
Black bags brimming with grimy, bloody instruments, these physicians and midwives hauled babies into the world with unclean hands -- leaving the mothers fever-ridden with sepsis, Death stroking their clammy faces.
Yet the physicians knew not of bacteria, and thought nothing of touching the mothers with unwashed hands and instruments.
Into this resigned fraternity came one doctor who insisted on strict cleanliness.
"Before the merest touch upon mother or child, you must wash your hands in hot water and lye soap! And touch not your own nose, or face, or clothes! Nor any surfaces!"
"Impossible!" the physicians cried. "How can we open doors to the wards or sickrooms? How can we pull back the sheets on the sickbeds? What if my nose or beard itches?!"
"Have a midwife scratch your beak," the physician replied, "but never shall they be permitted to touch the mother or her birth canal, without the same clean hands!"
"Absurd!" the physicians cried, and returned to their traditional ways.
But, over the months, they could not help but hear the gossip about how this young, fanatical doctor never once lost a patient to the clammy fever -- how both mother and child always remained healthy -- while their own patients oft succumbed mere days after childbirth.
Soon, every expectant mother in the land demanded the services of this one doctor -- and the other physicians were turned away from their doors.
Slowly, one after another, grumbling all the while, they all began to wash their hands.
Thus, the world doesn't want your genius, but it needs it.


March 21, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to Michelle Obama, who, for this week's Women's History Month celebrations, told a class of high-school students that other people's doubting her "never stopped me. That always made me push harder."
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The Rapids, The Rower
Blindly they approached a roar like the voice of Legion, or the hoof-beats of a Diluvian stampede risen from a plain of fossils.
The explorers broke through the misty, orchid-draped green canopy and set down their portaged canoes by the shore of a torrential river.
Staring at the rushing water, hulking stones and sunken whirlpools, trepidation hammered their hearts.
Yet both skimmed out into the churn and chum.
One rower, overwhelmed by the tossing currents, froze -- his hands gripping the edges of his canoe.
It spun around and around, and as, at the last, he screamed in fright, it capsized and was dashed into pieces upon a boulder, then sucked into the depths of a whirlpool.
Two pieces of his canoe still were clutched in his hands, as he sank beneath the spiral of water.
The other rower, almost as overwhelmed, nevertheless resolved to keep rowing, no matter what.
As his canoe was tossed about on the rapids, he narrowly avoided certain destruction, time and again.
Eventually, his strength spent and his aim abandoned, he too was broken by the rapids and lost to the swirling currents.
Yet in his last moment of awareness, he felt no fear, but only the thought, "Oh, what a thrilling ride it was!"
Thus, you are in the rapids, and you must row -- or capsize.


March 14, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Negated, The Affirmed
Untouchable.
It was her caste, in this ancient land.
But she believed -- believed more than anything in her young life -- that she was the true equal of any who trod the soil of their land carrying the red spot of the highborn.
Slavishly working into the night, she saved money to enroll in private school, because she was forbidden to attend a public one.
On the first day she boarded a trolley for school, the trolley soon filled with highborn.
Frowning faces with red dots glared down at her where she sat, and voices called a gendarme.
She sat still and calm, looking into all their faces, and then saw, peeking out from behind a saffron sari, the small, red-dotted face of a little girl. She smiled at the little one.
Then a gendarme pushed up to her, and yelled, "Untouchable, leave the trolley to make way for the highborn, who cannot sit next to you!"
The untouchable woman then looked the little girl straight in the face, and, instead of silently bowing and backing off the trolley, as she'd done countless times before, she straightened her back and said, "No. It is my right to sit here, as it is theirs to sit beside me."
Shock and anger erupted.
As two gendarmes hauled her off the trolley by her legs and arms like a sack of grain, she caught the troubled glance of the little girl, saw her pluck at her mother's shawl, and heard, "Mama, it's wrong to hurt the nice lady!"
And, as she sat in the dirt and looked up to see the little girl stare sadly back at her through a window of the receding trolley, she knew, knew, that she'd won a victory that day.
Thus, don't contradict who you are. -- via Parker Palmer


March 7, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated, on the 54th anniversary of her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to whites, to teenage civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin; and to her fellow historical predecessors of Rosa Parks: Elizabeth Jennings Graham, Irene Morgan, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith. Ride on!
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The Sunflower, The Barrenwort
The Sunflower dwelt in a small, tree-lined garden.
It grew tall, sinuous and broad of leaf in the fulsome light of warm days, and seeded many children.
But some fell into shade, and the Sunflower's face turned away as those children withered and died -- from lack of a soupçon of the sun's brilliant tang on their yearning leaves.
The Barrenwort dwelt in the same garden, beneath the dark crook of a tree.
It too grew broad, ruddy red and majestic, its crimson bloom bathed in the cool light of the moon, and it too seeded many children.
But some fell into light, and the Barrenwort held dark vigil as those children were stillborn -- from searing sunrays on their tender leaves.
Thus, seek the soil in which you can grow.


February 28, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to those with autism and Asperger's Syndrome, who daily effectively integrate into society -- and in admonishment of the "Mr. Spock Defense" of the accused Craigslist Killer, Michael John Anderson, whose alleged claims that he shot babysitter Katherine Ann Olson "because it would be funny," and that "I didn't kill her, the bullet did," led his lawyers to assert that only emotional sensitivity, not thoughtful logic, can lead to morality.
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The Lemming, The Eagle
Eaglets, their parents lost to a hunter's rifle, hatched in a nest at the top of a tall cliff.
They hatched into loneliness, their cries unheard -- save for the ears of a small lemming.
This mother lemming had co-opted and fur-lined the nest for her own brood - but, as all good mothers do, brought the eaglets half-chewed worms that boiled from the rain-soaked earth.
She and her growing brood cared for the chicks as if they were their own. But they did not know how to teach their brother eaglets to fly, not knowing themselves. So the eaglets clumsily hopped along the top of the cliff behind their adopted lemming family.
Sometimes the eaglets sat and gazed at seabirds wheeling above them in the sky.
"See how feathery and long their arms are!" one would say, "just like ours!" -- and both brothers knew something was wrong, but not quite what.
Then one day a great, inland wind blew over the cliffs to the sea, and the lemmings hunkered down in a thicket. But the two eaglets, now nearly full-grown, were too large to hunker in the thicket with them.
The wind caught in their feathers, and blew them over the cliff.
One of the brother eaglets curled into a small, still ball, like a lemming, and plummeted into the sea.
But his brother eaglet cast his fears, and himself, into the face of the winds, and opened wide his arms. As his wings unfurled to their full, majestic span, they caught the currents of the sky.
And, become an eagle at last, he soared over land and sea, soon to master all.
Thus, when pushed off a cliff, try to fly. -- via Babylon 5


February 21, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the optimism of the U.S. stock market investor, huddling in the deepest trench (to date) of the Millennial Recession.
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The Falsifier, The Truthsayer
King for the all the seasons of a man's life, the ruler kept two advisors.
One advisor, panicking as drought, famine and invasion drew nigh, could only utter when standing before the king, "Milord, I see, uh... a time of rainfall, plenty and peace!"
The other advisor, seeing the same coming drought, famine and invasion, spoke truth to power, saying, "Milord! I, too, fervently wish for rainfall, plenty and peace -- but our wishing for it will not make it one whit likelier to happen."
"We must plan for drought, famine and war, my King -- for if we do not, we will all surely starve, or have our throats slit open for our last crumbs of bread!"
So did the king build a reservoir for the receding river waters.
So did he fill his granaries for both his own people and for their neighboring peoples.
And so, when drought did come, there was water and food for all until the rains came again -- and peace for all in his kingdom and beyond.
Except, of course, for one wandering ex-advisor.
Thus, a lie is murder, by killing another's reality -- and suicide, by killing your own.


February 14, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the memory of those killed by Peanut Corporation of America president Stewart Parnell -- whose alleged burial of salmonella-positive tests buried not only his victims, but himself.
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The Door, The World
Swooning in adoration of a beautiful girl from his village, a boy abandoned his father's house.
Loitering by the front door of the girl's villa, the boy bowed to her father at the entryway, and, seeing through it the girl smile radiantly at him from an atrium balcony, asked permission of her father to court her.
The girl's father scoffed, replying, "Boy, you have no family, no money, nor even yet hair on your face!"
Then the girl's father stepped out onto the front stoop of his villa, and, reaching back, slammed the entry door shut behind him.
The boy's last glimpse of the object of his infatuation was of wide eyes and a red mouth -- shaped, just like his, into a large, surprised "O."
Disconsolate, the boy hung his head, and pleaded to her father, "Now what do I have, sir, without her?"
The father laughed uproariously, and, reaching out to clap the small lad on the shoulder, turned him about-face, picked him up into the air, and tossed him into the street.
As the boy thumped to earth in a billowing cloud of dust, he heard a merry voice reply, "You've the rest of the world, lad!"
Thus, when one door closes, the rest of the world remains. -- via Parker Palmer


February 7, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Blindered, The Open-Eyed
Bestriding golden wheat and gnarled olive trees sojourned a man and his pair of mares.
Both horses were spirited, and difficult to break to the chore of pulling his carts to the village market.
One mare, however, allowed him to strap blinders on her great, brown head. The vision only of the road ahead pacified the huge horse, and she would settle down and pull the man's cart all day long and into the night.
"With those blinders and a feedbag strapped to her neck, she's hardly any trouble at all anymore!" the man crowed to his neighbors.
But oh, the other horse! She tossed her yellow-starred head and golden mane to and fro, whenever the man came near her with the blinders.
She refused to wear them at all.
When yoked to the man's cart, she panned her head back and forth, and her great body immediately followed, veering off the rutted road to explore, disappearing over the hill to see what was beyond -- all the while dragging his bushels of wheat and jars of olives.
Finally one day, as the man loitered, foot in creek, with his friends, the mare reared high, snapped her harness, and bolted straight off -- to far-distant green mountain pastures and streams.
"Damn her hide," the man always intoned to his friends in his later years, staring angrily off to the distant mountains.
"If that mare had just kept her eyes glued to her own hooves, she'd still be hauling my goods even today."
Thus, eyes open! -- via Star Trek: Voyager


January 31, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to Minnesota State Representative and Catholic politician Paul Thissen, whose courageous refusal to enforce Catholic doctrine upon the general public, and whose recognition that morality is compatible with prochoice policy, led to his being stripped of his Hall of Fame Alumnus Award by his former high school, the Academy of Holy Angels, under the advisement of the local archdiocese and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for Catholics in Public Life -- which asserts that any Catholic politicians who do not work to "correct" abortion laws are "guilty of cooperating in evil and sinning against the common good"; and which instructs the Catholic community to refrain from giving any awards or honors to those who defy the church's fundamental "moral" principles. To paraphrase a local commentator (Shawn Gilbert), no Christian community should expect its politicians to force religious doctrine upon the general public any more than should a Muslim politician force non-Muslim women to wear a veil.
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The Hopping Roo, The Leaping Roo
In the eons of the island continent's dreamtime, before the arrival of Man, the Kangaroo rose from the earth to rule it.
More than any other, the Roo leapt high and far above the land, with its massive, stump-sized legs and feet.
Yet the dreamtime, in its unconscious wisdom, had fashioned not one, but two such Roos -- with equal ability, but different hearts.
The first Roo was called by the Parliament of Dingoes and Koalas to the edge of a great chasm carved into the earth by a river.
"You are to rule us, but to prove yourself, you must leap this chasm!" they challenged.
The Roo stared, quivering, at the far side of the plateau, then down at the rushing river, and then at her own two huge feet.
The feet stepped back.
"No!" she cried.
"Even for one such as I, it is much too great a leap. An impossible leap!"
And the Roo hopped away, trembling, into the Outback -- to dwell among the lizards and underbrush the rest of her barren days, jealous of a spirit she knew had never been hers.
The second Roo was summoned by the Parliament of Dingoes and Koalas.
"You are to rule us, but to prove yourself, you must leap this chasm!" they once again challenged.
This Roo glanced down, not at the depths, but at the cliff edge's hard, compact soil -- and then slowly raised her head to gaze at the other side, an impossible distance away.
Her feet stepped back.
"So be it!" she cried, then leaped forward, as far as her heart and feet could carry her, into the chasm.
In that instant she became their ruler.
Thus, do not fear trying the impossible -- the alternative is to fear that others will.


January 24, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the first 100 days of the Obama Presidency -- and its emphasis on impossible leaps forward.
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The Immortal, The Mortal
Called by some Zeus, the "God of Thunder," his job was to hurl bolts of lightning at trees -- or at human heads grown tall with pride.
Zeus was an Immortal, a being who could neither age nor die. But over millennia of hurling bolts of lightning to the earth, only once -- for a few, fleeting hundreds of years -- when a clan of robed and sandaled humans chose to call him the Father of the Gods, did he take pleasure in it.
But after awhile, none any longer worshipped him, and every man -- and woman too -- began to stand so tall, it seemed, that he ran out of thunderbolts before even making a dent in their population.
Then finally, one day his former worshippers invented a metal pole that just sucked his bolts straight into the earth, harmlessly.
His hair stood on end.
In his rage, Zeus snatched up an old, frail woman from her backyard gardening, to finally confront a human with his complaints.
Depositing the old woman onto a terraced atrium garden atop Mount Olympus, he took human form and approached her.
"I am Zeus!" he cried in a thundering voice.
The old woman barely looked at him -- she was staring at his garden.
She turned to him and said, "Your garden is full of weeds!"
As the old woman bent over and began to pluck the overgrown ivy and mint from a porcelain-inlaid path in the garden, Zeus found himself sputtering, "Well, gods don't have time for gardening!"
"Because of all that time you spend abducting old crones?" the woman murmured, laughing, as she plucked.
"Stop your plucking! I deign to tell you that, after all these years of being ignored, I want people to fear and worship me again!"
The woman did stop plucking, dropped her pile of weeds, ivy and mint on the walkway, slowly straightened her crooked back with a groan, and looked straight up into Zeus's eyes.
"And why, exactly, do you deserve to be worshipped and feared?" she asked him.
His face turned as red as his beard.
"I can strike you dead!"
She thought for a moment, then replied, "We have lightning rods." Her glance turned impatient. "Try again."
Zeus mumbled, "Uh, I'm a God?"
The woman rolled her eyes.
"Why do you think you're worthy of worship just because you're a god?"
Zeus pondered. And pondered again. Then said nothing.
"You see," said the old woman, her glance softening slightly, "immortality does you no good, Zeus, if you have nothing to show for it."
The old woman patted him on the shoulder. "You want me to worship you?" She bent over, picked up the pile of weeds from his garden, and plopped them into his mighty hands. "Then here -- do something useful."
And so, under the all-too-brief but never forgotten tutelage of an old woman, did Zeus become Vertumnus, the God of Gardens.
Thus, do not hope for some immortality -- hope for something mortally important to do.


January 17, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to those who made real Abraham Lincoln's new birth of freedom, Martin Luther King's dream, and Barack Obama's change.
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The Faith Healer, The Town Doctor
A rolling vista had long separated the faith healer from the town doctor.
But then the traveling tent rolled over it.
The faith healer filled his tent with worshippers every Sunday. Like storm-water eddying around a drain, throngs surged to touch his white, sequined jacket, and to see others cast off crutches and throw away eye patches -- although, oddly, the locals weren't acquainted with these who cried, "I'm healed!"
The town doctor -- cotton jacket frayed but washed bone-white and carefully ironed -- was a gruff man and a poor talker. But he'd delivered most of the townsfolk into this world, and saved more lives than most men ever get around to.
One Sunday, a middle-aged woman from the next town, who'd tumbled down her mossy porch stairs and cracked her leg, hobbled on a makeshift crutch to the faith healer, and begged him to heal her.
The healer, after quickly double-checking a list he was palming, ignored her plea, moving on toward a man on crutches beside her. But the woman clutched the hem of his jacket, sobbing, "Please, healer, don't abandon me!"
The healer turned back to her, brushing her hand from his jacket. He placed his palm on the top of her head, closed his eyes, and, after a short pause, withdrew his hand and uttered in a stern voice, "Ye have little faith, woman! Come back when you have more!"
Demolished, the woman hobbled out of the tent into the street, and wept.
The doctor, out walking his rounds, saw her crutch and approached her. Ignoring her tears, he squatted down and took one measured glance of her purple and black shinbone.
He stood and turned toward the tent, and what had been grim in his face became baleful.
Then he looked at her sternly - just like, she remembered, her long-dead father, hoisting her underarm as she dawdled on their walk home from the river.
"Ma'am, that leg of yours is bent -- you need to have that break reset, and soon, or it'll heal wrong." And he led her to his office, sedated her, straightened her leg and set it in a cast.
In time she was healed.
Thus, reality is not the only path -- but it is the only path forward.


January 10, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Fawn, The Otter
By the bayou lived a Fawn and an Otter.
The Fawn perked up her ears and froze at the smallest crack of a twig.
Her heart leapt about inside her like a mouse in a cage, and her legs trembled.
She hid in the lap of the cypress trees whenever the sun burst from behind a cloud.
So did the Fawn burn the candle of her life -- until a hunter's rifle puffed out her tremulous flame.
The Otter cavorted and dove in the black marsh.
Floating on her back, she cracked open pecans on a stone perched on her belly.
She barked and loped to sniff out the cracking of a twig or the crashing of a tree branch.
She rolled in the dirt whenever the sun burst from behind a cloud.
So did the Otter savor the story of her life -- until a gator's maw snapped closed her final chapter.
Thus, be miserable and die, or be happy and die. Pick one!


January 3, 2009, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2009 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Plan, The Act
He was a man with plans.
Plans spun dizzily through his mind every day.
He talked constantly of how special his plans were -- of how important his plans would be, for his people, for the world, for the future.
And he talked of how he hoped to find time to write down and start his plans soon, or someday.
But one day -- a planning day, like all the rest -- his heart stopped, and he fell to the ground.
Silently, he took his plans with him into forever.
There was another man with plans.
They too spun crazily through his mind every day.
But this man saw that talking wasn't doing -- so he didn't boast about his plans, or claim them special.
Instead, he wrote all his plans down.
Then he took a deep breath every morning after awakening, and put his plans, starting with the most important, into action.
Some of his plans failed soon after taking wing, which he mourned.
Some he had no time to nurture, and passed on to others, whom he blessed with his best wishes.
Some of his plans never took wing at all -- for a star flies higher than any wing can reach.
But a few of his plans flew into action.
And they remade the world, better.
The day came that this man's heart, too, stopped, and he too fell to the ground, silent.
But his acts lived forever.
Thus, your plans die with you, but your acts live on.


December 27, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated, for the coming New Year, to those who shall make their resolutions real.
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The Anglerfish, The Rattlesnake
Fiery dunes subsided into the cool waves of the sea.
There, where desert sand meets water, met a snake and a fish.
"Hola!" yelled the fish from the foamy surf.
"Hola," murmured the snake from a tall dune, in return.
"You sound dejected, my scaly compatriot," said the fish.
"Indeed," hissed the snake. "I am hated and feared, even though I'm shy and retiring!"
"How could that be?" asked the fish.
"Because of this!" cried the snake, whipping up into the air his tail -- upon which thrashed a rattle. A noise like spilling skulls and bones filled the air.
"Ah, life is indeed unfair," the fish agreed. "Hah! You are hated and feared -- by the very ones whose lives you and your rattle spare!"
And then the fish raised from his head a lure, and lowered it thrashing into the surf. In an instant, a shrimp pounced on the lure -- and in one snap of his huge jaws, the fish bit the shrimp in half.
Shrimp legs spewing from his maw, the anglerfish roared with laughter at the aghast rattlesnake.
"While I, I leave none alive to hate or fear!"
Thus, dishonesty lures to destruction -- as honesty wards from destruction.


December 20, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated in celebration of the skeptical investor, and in admonishment to the charitable and personal fortunes lost to the golden lures of Tom Petters and Bernard Madoff.
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The Dishonorable, The Honorable
Poverty and integrity was the cursed gift of their parents' fallible guidance and infallible love.
Yet the brothers' gift was soon broken.
A clumsy merchant on a high balcony spilled a pot of silver coins over their very heads.
One brother chased down most of the coins, battling off as many grabbing thieves as he could, and, hailing the frantic merchant from below, returned to him all that he'd collected.
The merchant gave him in return his effusive thanks, but no more.
Yet this brother's integrity remained of one piece that day.
What stood unbroken in him reflected the light of others who came his way, and so did his integrity spread forth among men.
Yet the other brother, on that fateful day, also saw the silver coins fall like rain from the balcony, and also dove to collect them, but returned not a single one.
Instead, with a muffled gasp of pain, he turned from the gathering crowd, from the merchant and from his own brother -- and slipped the pile of silver coins he had scooped up into his coat pocket. Then, with the quickest of the thieves, the second brother stole away, never glancing back into his brother's or the merchant's eyes.
This brother's integrity fractured in two that day.
Later, lying about the source of his new horses and saddles, then of his new young bull, then of his stocks of cured meats and fine wines, his integrity fractured into a thousand shards.
He found himself not one person whole, but become hundreds of persons -- each mirroring a false expectation, a fabricated past, a risen-again excuse, to each new traveler who'd heard and wondered about the source of his sudden wealth.
So did the dishonest brother lose, with his integrity, his soul -- as its fragmented shards were ground to dust beneath the feet of all other men.
Thus, integrity is the soul's mirror of reality -- do not break it.


December 13, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated in celebration of the honesty of U.S. Congressman Rahm Emanuel and U.S. Senator and President-Elect Barack Obama of Illinois -- and in admonishment of the alleged attempted sale of the U.S. Senatorial appointment by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
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The Bacchanalian, The Stoic
In an ancient archipelago of city-states lived two philosophers.
One philosopher was a Bacchanalian, who encouraged all to follow their emotions wherever they led.
He proclaimed, "Your past and your future are a fiction! Yesterday is dust, and tomorrow may never come -- so revel today!"
Yet, one day, when an invading armada had the run of his city-state, he lost his head from his neck -- after he was found, by invading soldiers, passed out drunk and naked in his villa, wine dribbling from his slack lips.
The other philosopher was a Stoic, who encouraged all to govern their emotions so that only the mind led.
He proclaimed, "Your past and your future are a biography! Yesterday happened indeed, and tomorrow will certainly come -- so think today!"
And, on that day when the invading armada tried to overrun his city-state, they were repelled by a well-set ring of traps and fires, and by a well-trained group of young warriors from his villa -- while he stood in command of all.
Thus, be the master of your emotions -- or the master of ruins.


December 6, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the lives of the Good Samaritan Society-Albert Lea, Minnesota nursing home residents -- and in admonishment to the six female teenage aides reported to have physically and sexually abused them, for "laughs."
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The Sand, The Stone
Two great cathedrals were built, one upon stone, the other upon sand.
The first cathedral stood for all time, a monument to its architects and masons, and to their indomitable spirit.
Yet the second cathedral, as beautiful and magnificent a monument to its builders as the first, began within a few short years to tilt, and then to settle into the sand.
As the decades and centuries flew by, it rocked back and forth, settling deeper and deeper, the sands slowly pouring against, shattering and running through its stained glass windows and arched doorways.
So did this cathedral subside under the bone-white sands of time, until, one day, the very tip of its tallest, most wondrous spire was all that still defied its sandy grave -- and none came to marvel, but only to regret.
Thus, even the most beautiful belief comes to naught if it stands not on solid earth.


November 29, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the victims of the Mumbai terrorist attack -- and in admonishment to theocratic fervor, a temple of slavery that stands upon a foundation of sand.
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The Seminar, The Ovarium
Nailed to the portal of the imposing granite hall were flyers for two lectures.
Two speakers were scheduled for that day.
The first raised one eyebrow archly.
"I've long planned for this. I'm going to instruct the masses about the cultural and economic consequences of commercial over-fishing."
The second speaker, rubbing her hands together, blurted out, "Oh, yes, I've dreamed of this day, too! I'm going to host a conference on fly-fishing!"
As the two speakers shook hands and entered their respective auditoriums on opposite sides of the hallway, the second speaker's auditorium began filling to the rafters with fishing enthusiasts.
Hanging on every word of their host, they queried, debated and commended her in excitement, when she discussed the most attractive fishing lures and revealed images of the most beautiful spots around the world to hook the perfect fish.
After the conference, the joyful fly-fishers, imbued with plans for new lures and visions of unimagined vistas, filed past the other auditorium.
Glancing in, they heard the droning voice of the first speaker -- accented only by reverberating echoes of fitful coughs from the few academicians who'd chosen to remain, and who sat almost alone in the cavernous auditorium.
Thus, eloquence sets fire to reason. -- via Favio Masulli y Becker


November 22, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Mirror of Sadness, The Mirror of Joy
It reflected the images of a soul's buried sadnesses and joys.
Many came to the mirror to see what hid within. A few, so very few, saw secret joy in the mirror, and went away with lightness in their steps and their smiles.
But most who stared into the mirror were horrified to see only sadnesses deep within it. These lost souls, staring at a rotted void, stumbled away from the mirror, many never to return to look at their true reflection again.
But a few, a very few, of the lost souls came back -- again and again -- to see exactly what the mirror revealed.
Gradually, with each disappointment, each horror, each agony debrided and chiseled away, they began to feel an indifference to sadness, and to feel in its place a yearning for hope.
With each visit to the mirror, they saw buried, then more revealed, the stanchions of happiness within the rotted catacombs of their soul.
Over the years did these brave ones, lost but for their single-minded refusal to shut their eyes, weld joy from incarnations of sadness.
Thus, you are the incarnation of emotion and mind -- but only one shall rule you wisely.


November 15, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the Schoolgirls of Kandahar, upon whom acid was thrown by Taliban "men."
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The Ignorant, The Aware
Libraries were as rare as unicorns, in the tiniest of villages where two young men lived.
But one of the young men was brash.
He oft bragged of many travels -- though he had ne'er set foot beyond the valley.
He oft proclaimed his wisdom concerning far-off happenings -- happenings about which he knew nothing and assumed that nobody else knew a whit more.
Over the years this young man grew to become a fatuous, pontificating fool.
The other young man was quiet.
He oft was reluctant to pontificate on things he readily admitted he knew little about.
He oft wished he could read, to better learn about far-distant lands and their happenings, but, as there was neither library nor books -- nor even so much as a teacher -- in their hamlet, he contented himself with learning lessons from life.
In time, he learned much about honesty -- and grew aware that ignorance was no sin, to be hidden in silence; nor a trait to pretend one had surpassed.
Ignorance was the place from which to ask all questions.
Over the years this young man grew to become an ever-wiser man -- who spoke little, but rightly when done.
Thus, strive for awareness, even if only of one's own ignorance.


November 8, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated in celebration of the innate right to marry -- and in warning to those voters who passed California's Proposition Eight, whose ignorance about gender attraction may lead to the forcible state annulment of marriages between their own citizens.
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The Effort, The Work
Fallow, rebelliously denuded, the cornfield lounged underfoot.
As the farmer and her daughter steered the plow behind their large mare, the blade clanged on a large, granite stone buried in the earth, heaved up by last winter's frost.
"Oh, dear!" said the farmer. "Daughter, I'm taking a milk break for a while. You're still fresh. Why don't you dig up and roll that stone over to the side of the field?"
The daughter, scraping away dirt from the stone with her foot, cringed and frowned. "Its huge! How am I supposed to move it?"
The farmer woman reached over to lightly pinch her girl's biceps. "With these, darling."
And off she rode the mare back to the farmhouse, for a tall, cold glass of milk, as her child glared at her sweat-stained back with exasperation.
Later that morning, the farmer returned to check on her daughter. As she approached the plow, she saw her child laid out flat on her back, hat perched over face, with pools of sweat long since spread through her shirt and shorts -- and the stone, sitting in the same spot as when she left.
"Why isn't the stone moved?" the farmer asked.
Her daughter looked out from beneath her hat, and said with quiet disdain, "Because it was too damn heavy, mother!"
She stood up on her spindly legs, now streaked with dirt.
"I worked as hard as I could on that rock! You can't blame me!"
But her mother smiled gently, and, caressing the disheveled strands of hair from her beloved child's face, told her one of the greatest, and most unpleasant, truths of life.
"Daughter, great effort or no, it wasn't work -- here the stone still sits."
Thus, it isn't work unless the stone moves.


November 1, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the young U.S. citizens who have registered, in larger numbers than ever before, to vote. Now go do it.
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The Red Ground, The Black Ground
Red clay entombed the land.
Upon this red ground only the thinnest weeds grew, and the land was as a desert.
There, animals scratched out meager homes.
Those who walked this red ground were hard and fearful -- for only the hard and fearful survived.
But black, soft humus blanketed a neighboring land.
Upon this black ground all seeds that fell grew into majestic trees.
There, all the animals built warm, pungent homes.
Those who walked this black ground were gentle and confident -- for all there long flourished.
Thus, observe the ground upon which you stand.


October 25, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to those in the U.S. who have questioned the equating of liberalism with anti-Americanism, and of government with the surrender of liberty.
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The Climber, The Precipice
Pride etched the stony face of a rock climber, who could scale the sheerest cliff or overhang using just her iron fingers and toes, and her iron stomach.
Cliffs from which most men turned away in fright she leapt upon -- her fingers digging into cracks too small to see from below.
Yet one day the climber chanced upon a precipice scoured by the breath of the underworld -- a sheer, volcanic glass wall so vertical and pristine, that she could see her own dismayed face reflected in its smooth black mien.
For days she camped beneath the black precipice, staring through binoculars for the slightest cracks and handholds, but saw none.
In desperation, she hammered spear-like pitons, but the wall merely sheared off clean facets at each hammer-blow. She made suction cups for her hands and feet, but even those could grip for no more than a few vertical meters the face of what seemed now to her a looming black obelisk -- her gravestone.
After many days sunk into depression, she awoke at dawn and saw the obelisk reflect the pink rays of the morning sun.
Suddenly she knew in her bones that this wall would remain, for all time, impregnable to her.
And in that moment the black wall suddenly transformed, behind her eyes, from a black gravestone into the shadow of her long-ago departed father, who loomed tall over her to shelter her from harm.
And so the climber walked away from certain destruction, standing safe on the ground.
Thus, a fall reveals a thing of value -- where solid ground lies. -- via Parker Palmer


October 18, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Surefooted, The Halt
Legs flailing, a child was born.
The child slowly learned to walk, his first steps halting and wavering.
As the child grew into a proud man, his steps became surefooted and straight. The man quickly pushed through all obstacles in every path he took.
But the ticking of years rushed forward like an accelerando metronome.
The man grew older and more infirm. He walked again as a child, his steps retreating and swerving as he maneuvered around the obstacles in his path.
After a spring morning's rainstorm, the old man haltingly walked to the store, avoiding puddles and fallen tree branches.
He asked himself sadly, "Does my gait differ, now, from that of the infant I once was?"
As a child he had lurched about like a baby bird, with little thought to what surrounded him. As an old man, he saw, his steps were similar, but with a hawk's awareness.
But then the old man realized something new.
Even as a powerful young man in the prime of his life, he had not possessed the wisdom of creaky bones.
He looked down at the puddles of slippery mud and the brittle, sharp branches at his feet.
"As a young man, I splashed through these puddles and crashed through these branches in my straight lines and unquestioned paths -- I never even considered their dangers as I barreled right through!"
The old man laughed.
"Even as a man, I was a child!"
Thus, the correct steps may well be halting and wavering -- not surefooted and straight.


October 11, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the diversified and lifecycle investors in the world markets.
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The Small Soul, The Great Soul
Great Sky River flowed above two raven-haired women of a forest tribe, long ago.
One young woman lived her life back turned, instead of face on.
She combed her long, black hair to entice the young men, but cared nothing for what lay beyond the cypress forest, or the far shore of Great Sky River.
Over years spent neither exploring nor questioning, her spirit shrank into a hard little ball and died, long before the death of her body.
But the other young woman lived her life face on, instead of back turned.
She ignored her hair and the young men, at least long enough to ask, "What is beyond the edge of the cypress forest, and beyond the edge of the horizon?"
"Who lives on the far shore of Great Sky River, or at its headwaters, or its end?"
Over years spent exploring, questioning, and gaining in wisdom, her spirit swelled so, that it could no longer remain inside her body.
And she overflowed into her people -- living on as teachings long remembered, even after her body had long since died.
Thus, live on while your spirit is dead, or die while your spirit lives on.


October 4, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the life of Afghani female police captain and women's rights enforcer, Malalai Kakar, assassinated this week by the Taliban.
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The Cobwebs, The Silk
Fearing either to die or live, he survived by default.
He dwelled in a small cabin by a flowing stream, and partook of its clear waters and leaping fish.
Birds sang in the Banyan trees that sheltered him.
Yet he ventured out only when driven by his growling stomach. The days of his life passed with him staring out his windows for possible intruders.
His companion was a small spider, who spun enormous cobwebs to catch flies.
The man could not touch the cobwebs -- he squatted, ducked and hunched over in his own home, to avoid getting them in his hair.
So did the spider become the master of the house.
In the fullness of years, the man grew stooped and old, and one day, falling dead into the stream as he lunged for a fish, he was swept away to the sea, unremembered.
One year later, a young wanderer chanced upon the abandoned cabin.
He saw the clear, cascading stream and the leaping fish, felt the cool shade of the Banyan tree above his head, and heard the calling of its plumed birds -- and renewed his life at that place.
He entered the cabin, and saw the massive cobwebs. He searched out the spider and said, "So, this is your home then, my tiny friend?"
"So be it! I will work with you and be your partner."
He opened the cabin's door and windows, to allow flies to enter for the spider to feed and multiply.
Then he harvested the baby spiders' great webs, spinning them into the finest silk kerchiefs -- to sell to travelers who came by the spiders' cabin and the inviting house he built nearby.
He and the spiders lived together as neighbors all his life, and grew rich and multiplied.
In the fullness of years, when the fabled "spider-man" grew as bent as his eight-limbed friends, and died, his body was tenderly buried by his great-grandchildren in a funeral cloth of the finest silk in the land.
Thus, fear is a silk web, reason a silk cloth.


September 27, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the new impetus toward bipartisanship in our democratic governments.
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The Prevailing Wisdom, The True Wisdom
Autumn colored their debate.
The village historian stood, floppy wool hat on his head and back bent from many years hunched over old almanacs, and proclaimed in his loudest voice, "There is no risk tonight to our grapes! Not in fifty years have we had a freezing sleet this early in autumn. The prevailing wisdom says that this chill wind will pass with no harm!"
"No harm!"
The crowd loudly applauded the old man -- for surely he knew best, having the longest memory of what had transpired in the village long years past.
Then a young vintner stood, his hat in his hand, and said, "Sirs, the prevailing wisdom is clear, but perhaps true wisdom would lie in us preparing the fires and fans tonight, to keep the sleet off our crus should it fall nonetheless."
The crowd hooted and catcalled, and he placed his hat on his head, yanked down its cap, and walked off toward his vineyard.
But a few other young men, all with new vineyards like him, followed him out of town, and said, "Maybe we are fools, but we shall do as you advise! Better a sleepless night and sore backs from making the fires to keep our grapes warm, than no money or wine for a year!"
That night, while the village slept, the sleet came suddenly upon the vineyards, and only the young vintners' fires and fans protected their harvests.
That year, the young vintners grew rich, as wine was rare.
Thus, prevailing wisdom is often not true wisdom.


September 20, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to those who've sought to live by true wisdom, rather than prevailing wisdom, through the U.S. mortgage credit crisis of 2008.
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The Orchid, The Dandelion
Growing in a mountain rainforest was an Orchid and a Dandelion.
Both brilliant yellow, the Orchid meandered along a hedge, while the Dandelion bloomed from emerald grass.
But wounds torn in the land by the hand of Man caused a cold, dry wind to blow over the rainforest.
The Orchid dwindled and died, its dappled beauty lost to all sight.
But the Dandelion had dug a foot-root deep into the soil's groundwater, and sprouted puffballs to waft its seeds, each hanging from a tiny umbrella, toward the four corners of the Earth.
So it is that orchids are seen only in hothouses, protected from the elements -- while dandelions sprout in your yard.
Thus, tenacity, hardiness and flexibility make success likelier.


September 13, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the recovery efforts of the victims of Gulf Coast Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike, and the "River of Sorrow" -- the Kosi River Flood of Bihar, India.
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The Rabbit, The Frog
Underneath a highway culvert lived a Rabbit and a Frog.
Every day cars rushed by overhead like the rush of the culvert's creek after a long rain. But at night the highway was often calm.
One such night, in black, starry quiet, the Rabbit and the Frog hopped up the gravel embankment to the middle of the blacktop, and sat watching falling stars.
The Frog croaked loud and long for a mate in the woods beyond the culvert, while the Rabbit nuzzled the air.
Suddenly a distant pair of stars low on the horizon loomed large and bore down on them with a deafening roar.
"Ruck...Truck!" erupted the Frog, and then, pushing off with his huge legs, leapt far through the air, a goggle-eyed green and white flash in the onrushing headlights of the 18-wheeler.
As he landed in the weeds and gravel beside the highway, the Frog looked back and saw his friend, ears rigid and staring into the headlights, frozen with fear and indecision.
"Ruckit...Buck it! Shuck it!!" the Frog yelled.
But, unmoving to his end, the Rabbit was squashed under the wheels.
Thus, the first step is the easiest one not to take.


September 6, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Winner, The Loser
None remembered how they'd crossed an ocean to find their home, this band of contented islanders who fished for their livelihoods.
The king of the islanders grew bored one morning, and decided to hold a race. He invited all comers to contest who could most quickly run all the way round their large island.
One by one or in small groups, the youngest and strongest of the men and women walked up to the huge boulder, half-buried in beach sand, marking the race's start.
But then a fat woman waddled up and joined the starting line.
Amid howls of laughter, the king turned to her with a frown. "Why do you join the contest, woman?! You will most certainly lose -- indeed, you are likely to come in last!"
The fat woman replied, "My goal is to finish the run, my King, not to beat the younger and stronger ones."
The king harrumphed, but let her stay.
He climbed high onto the rock in a circling cloud of dislodged seagulls, then stood, plucked from his head his straw hat with its king's garland of feathers, held it high above the hushed throng, and dropped it into the sand.
In a burst of cheers, the racers broke off the line in a fast lope, and quickly disappeared around the eastern cliffs -- all but the fat woman, who bobbed slowly far behind them.
After three hours, the first of the runners rounded the palm trees to the south, and crossed the finish line with legs pumping to the cheers of the islanders. Very soon the other racers streamed in, and were welcomed by the crowds.
But instead of moving off to the award ceremony and festivities, all the islanders, and even the racers, wanted to stay -- to see if the fat woman could really finish.
They danced and sang songs on the beach all afternoon as they waited for her. As the sun began to set behind the island hills, she finally appeared rounding the palm trees, bobbing steadily toward them.
The islanders and racers screamed in delight.
Even the king found himself running excitedly with his people to greet her, to cheer her on to the finish line.
Thus, to win a contest, know what the contest is against.


August 30, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the U.S. Republican and Democratic parties -- who this year will give America either its first woman Vice-President or first African-American President.
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The Civilian, The Footsoldier
Calamity befell a proud island people.
The volcano on whose shores for ages had they dwelled exploded.
Death alighted in flaming snow.
But, at the edges of the island, some survived. Local civilians scattered into boats and rafts, carrying their hastily wrapped gold and jewels in singed linens, and sailed away from the island to safety.
But one among them, shuffling toward a boat from his burning home, with his coat pockets brimming with gold coins, slowed as he espied a young footsoldier desperately carrying out ancient scrolls from the island's smoking library.
A scroll dropped unnoticed by the frantic footsoldier, and rolled to the civilian's feet.
The civilian stooped to pick it up, glanced at the inscription on its satin ribbon -- and saw it was a copy of the most ancient and revered philosophy of his people.
The man's eyes widened as he looked down at the scroll, then he looked up, dumbfounded, at other dropped scrolls scattering in the hot volcanic wind gusting behind the back of the lone footsoldier, as the young recruit ran to dump another pile of scrolls into a pontoon boat on the dock.
The civilian looked down at his huge coat and pants pockets brimming with gold coins.
Then he raised his head, closed his eyes, and groaned.
He dug into his pockets, then thrust his hands high in the air.
"A fistful of gold to any man who takes the time to help that soldier-boy and me move out these scrolls!"
As heads and fleeing steps slowed and turned his way, he ran toward the library -- and, alighting on his heart like ribboned medals, was a grateful footsoldier's glance, and the future pride of his people.
Thus, you are a footsoldier in the army of destiny.


August 23, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the volunteers who, even if disbelievingly, hold the true reins of power -- the voters.
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The Flies, The Cowbird
Dappled black and white, the huge cow was the most prized of all a farmer's small herd for her rich milk and gentle ways.
Come summer, the monsoon rains swarmed, and with them came swarms of insects.
The poor heifer was tormented by biting flies, who sucked so much of her blood that her milk became thin, and her disposition angry and plaintive.
The farmer cried in his dismay.
But the flies still came.
Then, one afternoon, arrived a dull little bird.
It alighted in the meadow before the huge cow and stared up at the cow's pained face, while she stared back angrily at its tiny brown head and black eyes.
Then, to the cow's amazement, the bird hopped up onto the top of her nose!
The cow mooed in anger, but then the bird plucked away and gulped down a fly that had been itchily sucking on the cow's forehead, and then continued plucking off flies wherever they had alighted on the cow's hide.
In gratitude, the cow contentedly settled down, to days filled with healthy repasts of hay and grain -- while the cowbird settled down, on her back, to days filled with healthy repasts of flies.
Thus, seek symbiosis -- not parasitism.


August 16, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the newest bicyclists and bus riders among us -- the Neo-conservationists.
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The Keeper, The Caged
Two men lived in cages.
The first man was grey and toothless. Years before, his jailers had given him a set of keys to his prison.
Yet he had so come to fear the world outside, that he kept his keys to freedom in the pocket of his prison garb, too afraid to even handle them.
Thus was the first man the keeper of his own cage.
The second man was as ancient as bones.
Yet since his youth he'd railed against his imprisonment, considered it unjust, and never ceased plotting ways to break out of his cage.
He sought, above all else, to carve a key to his prison, and dreamed of great embarkations, for that day when freedom alighted.
Thus was the second man less caged than the first -- for he did not fear freedom, and his cage was not of his own making.
Thus, fear of change is a prison. Break out.


August 9, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the memory of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and to the free people of Georgia.
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The Engine, The Driver
Three race cars sat on the track.
The first race car was but a shell on wheels, its engine removed. The driver pushed the eviscerated car to the starting line, hopped into the seat, grabbed the wheel -- and bobbed back and forth behind the steering column like a wind-up toy. The eviscerated shell of the racer rocked gently on the asphalt.
The second race car was a Formula One racer, with a massive engine -- but no driver. The racer idled in neutral, its throbbing engine powerless to budge it even one inch.
The last race car was a small convertible with a four-cylinder engine, but a capable driver. As the green flag fell, he gunned his engine, shifted into first, and leapt down the racetrack, rubber burning behind him on the road.
In seconds he was gone -- riding a cloud of white, beyond the far turn.
Thus, emotion is our engine - but we must remain the driver.


August 2, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Bouquet, The Bonsai
A young woman was inexorably dying.
One uncle brought her a large bouquet of cut flowers. The woman placed them in a vase with water to keep them alive, and thought she would enjoy watching them over the next few days.
But she found herself noticing the growing signs of decay as the cut flowers slowly withered. She grew sad, and said to herself, "So, too, am I a cut flower."
But the next day her favorite uncle brought her another gift -- a small bonsai tree, growing intricately upon a clot of earth.
Other relatives chided this gift, saying, "That plant will outlive her! Why remind her of how limited her time is?!"
Yet the woman accepted the gift of the bonsai, and placed it in the sun on her windowsill.
For weeks, long after the cut flowers from all her other relatives had turned shrunken and brown and been thrown away, long after the relatives had gone home, the woman sat and watched the bonsai.
She thought she would be bothered by its steadfast little life, but she found herself noticing how minute and beautiful it was - how very beautiful, because of those very limitations and restrictions placed upon it.
As her last day arced across her life with the dawning and setting sun, and she saw the silhouette of the bonsai against the dimness of opium and velvet sky, she grew happy, and said to herself, "So, too, was I a bonsai."
Thus, acceptance of life's limits need not limit life's beauty.


July 26, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Wife, The Chattel
Husband and wife, they loved each other as equals.
He commuted to work, they both raised their beloved sons and daughters, and she chose to maintain their home until getting a job herself.
Next door there lived another husband and wife -- but which the husband insisted was "man and wife."
He proclaimed to all that his wife was his chattel -- his property.
Only he would decide what his family would do.
He forced his wife to abandon her interests to maintain his house and raise his children -- with whom he did not wish to be bothered except for his son. He instructed his wife to raise his daughters only to submit to their future husbands' wishes.
One day the first woman met her browbeaten neighbor while trimming the bushes between their houses.
"Leave that pompous fool!" she advised. "And take your children with you!"
But the second woman, unprepared for life alone, remained with her husband.
Over the years, the first family prospered in life, and in love, and their children returned every year to fill their beloved ancestral home with celebration.
But the second household grew confused and cold.
The daughters rebelled against their father's disdain and domination -- but knew no better than to flee into the arms of other abusive men. The son became, like his father, domineering.
All the children left home as soon as they could, and never returned.
So too, did the wife, in nameless yearning, eventually leave her husband, never to see him again.
The man spent his aged years as the unloved master of an empty house.
Thus, freedom is the well from which reason rises -- to think freely, one must be free to think.


July 19, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Untested, The Failed
Mother and daughter sang in their dreams.
When still a young, unmarried woman, the mother had practiced singing lessons until her voice was as beautiful as a songbird's.
Yet she so feared the scorn of others that, after sneaking into the back of the auditoriums during auditions, she stood mute, never stepping forward.
She took a husband and birthed her daughter -- who, baptized in lullabies, was the only audience to the gentle glory of her mother's voice.
The daughter, when still a young, unmarried woman, practiced singing lessons as had her mother, until her voice too was as a songbird's.
Yet she had heard so often of her mother's fear of scorn, and of her cowering in the dark recesses of audition halls, that on her own very first audition she marched to the stage, blurted out her name, and sang.
She was scorned.
But she sang before many audiences -- and scorn gradually transformed into grudging, then free, approbation.
She failed to scale that pinnacle of which both she and her mother had dreamed -- but still she was satisfied, for she had given her dream her very best.
Such satisfaction forever eluded her mother.
Thus, it is better to fail than to never have tried. -- via Theodore Roosevelt


July 12, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Moderates, The Radicals
Bordering a vast gulf dwelled the peoples of two continents.
On one continent the people lived under strict laws, set down thousands of years before, that forced them to dress, wear their hair, study, labor, congregate, and marry, in proscribed ways.
Those who did not were ostracized, ridiculed, beaten, burned, lynched or beheaded.
The people of this continent lived in constant hatred and fear, as their forebears had done for centuries.
Yet they called themselves moderates.
On the other continent the people lived under lenient laws, continually perfected by amendment, that prohibited force, allowing them to dress, wear their hair, study, labor, congregate, and marry, in any way.
Only those who sought to force others were punished, if first found guilty by their peers.
The people of this continent lived in constant empathy and optimism, as their forebears had done for centuries.
Yet they called themselves radicals.
Thus, liberty is radical.


July 4, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated on this 84,736th day of the United States of America to the foundational principles of its Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights -- which point toward a world where, one day, all shall claim their unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
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The Spattered Paint, The Mandala
From the West an artist visited an ancient monastery in the East.
The monastery's head monk asked him, "May we see an example of your art?"
The artist obliged. Opening his steamer trunk and unrolling a bare white canvas, he laid it out flat on the stone floor, and unscrewed tubes of different colored paints.
Then, dipping his brush into them, he closed his eyes tightly shut, flicked his wrists and spattered the paint all over the canvas.
The monks bent over and stared a long while at the random colors and shapes, murmuring and nodding their heads. Then the most aged among them smiled and said, "Lovely! We too, have a very similar form of art! Come see!"
The artist and monks all filed into a small temple room behind the aged monk, who stepped aside and pointed to another monk on the floor, putting the final touches on an intricate, multi-hued mandala, made of individual grains of colored sand.
The Western artist stared down at the mandala, a work of near unimaginable labor, complexity and rigorous geometric order, and looked up at the old monk with confusion in his face.
"Old man, this work is nothing like mine!"
The old monk exchanged glances with the monk on the floor, who, just having finished the mandala, bowed deeply to it, then to the artist, and then reached out his hand and scattered the sand image with swirling arcs of his arm and robe.
The wise old monk then turned, beaming, to the artist and said, "It is now!"
Thus, within seeming chaos, purpose can lie buried.


June 28, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Mud House, The Brick House
Returned from his honeymoon, a new husband sought to build a house for his bride and stepchildren.
On a sunny day he walked to the river flats and shoveled pile after pile of heavy, steaming mud into his wheelbarrow.
Yet, upon hauling it back to his new family's tent, so tired was he that he said to himself, "This mud is heavy and caked, and will work just fine as it is!"
So he shaped the mud into blocks, and he and his family piled them up into a house, and rejoiced at their new home.
But later came the monsoons, and, to their horror and his secret shame, their mud house melted into nothing, under the pelting of the unending rain.
Another newlywed likewise sought to build a house for his new family.
On that same steaming hot day, he too walked to the river flats, and also shoveled pile after pile of heavy mud into his wheelbarrow.
So exhausted was he, that he too was sorely tempted to just shape the mud into crude blocks and tell his family to pile them up.
Yet, looking into his new wife's and children's anxious eyes, he knew his obligation was to do more.
He rested that long day, but on the morrow walked through the fields, gathering straw -- which for many days he shaped with mud into solid bricks, while reassuring his wife and children, "This way is harder, and I can barely bring myself to do it, but it is the better way."
Eventually all the bricks were made, whereupon they piled them up into a home.
And their rejoicing was tenfold because their effort had been tenfold.
Later came the monsoons, and, to their joy and his secret pride, their house stood unharmed against the unending rainfall, which ran down the sides of their straw-reinforced mud bricks and flowed on to the sea.
Thus, to succeed you must do what success requires.


June 21, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated in honor of the Midwest Flood sandbaggers -- and in warning to the Army Corps of Engineer's policy of stuffing gaps in levees and floodwalls with newspaper.
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The Ambition, The Achievement
Young boys in the Far Eastern steppes were school playmates.
As they sat in the playground's rusty pair of swings, scuffing their feet in the scrub grass and weeds, and blowing out fistfuls of dandelion candles in an imagined birthday cake, the first boy turned to his playmate.
"When I grow up, I want to be President!"
The second boy was duly impressed.
"And I want to be a cosmonaut!" he replied.
"Bozhe moi!" the first boy exclaimed.
And a gleam was shared in their eyes.
The boys grew into men.
The first ran for city council, lost twice, and then won. Later, he became mayor, and several times met -- and advised -- his country's Presidents.
The second applied for the cosmonaut program -- but his stomach was weak, and he was not accepted. Instead, he went to college and became a mission scientist, creating equipment for the first international space station.
The men grew old.
Years later, they met again on the playground outside their former grade school.
"I was a failure," murmured the former mayor, "because I never became President."
His former playmate was duly skeptical.
"Oh? I was a success," he retorted, "because, even if I never became a cosmonaut, I was a damn fine mission scientist."
And, after looking around at the renovated and bustling school, with its verdantly manicured, sparkling playground bursting with well-fed and educated kids, the second man added, "And, my 'all-or-nothing' friend, quit sighing! You were a damn fine mayor!"
Thus, "all-or-nothing" usually leads to nothing.


June 14, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Inchworm, The Grasshopper
Grassy hillocks undulated under clouds swept like great dust bunnies toward the edge of the earth.
The Inchworm crawled along and between blades of grass as if it had all the time in the world.
Slowly it waved about, then grabbed the glossy face of a nearby green blade with its first six feet (six of many!), bent its long torso up into the air to hoist its rear, and grasped the blade with its last six feet.
Then it stretched way out, and did it all over again.
So did the Inchworm inch along in life.
But the Grasshopper acted as if it had no time to dawdle.
It cocked the huge muscles on its back two legs, reared, and shot itself into the blue sky, clouds and green earth tumbling around its eyes.
Then it righted itself where it landed, once more cocked its legs and shot into the void all over again.
So did the Grasshopper leap along in life.
Thus, a leap cannot be earthbound.


June 7, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the California Supreme Court's ruling that marriage is so profound a "human" right that it must be allowed regardless of gender.
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The Relic, The Tooth
Consternation roiled the village, which gathered at the local elder's for counsel.
The headsman begged the elder, "O Old One, we need your advice! A Shaman has finally come to our village, and he carries with him a finely woven basket. He says that those of us who reach inside it, and touch a secret Relic it carries within, will know good fortune and health!"
"But the Shaman asks us each for an ox! What should we do?"
The old man peered into their worried faces, and a contented smile ever so slightly curved his wrinkled lips.
"I can give you what you need! Over my many years, a boon for great good fortune fell into my hands -- and I've been saving it for just this need!"
He pointed with his reed-thin arm to a small, red-dyed soapstone box among his possessions.
"In that box is the boon I obtained at the feet of a Wise One! Those of you who touch it -- and forget about the traveling Shaman's fine woven basket and its secret Relic -- will be blessed with great good fortune and health this coming season!"
The people gathered around the old man, and peered inside the small red box.
Inside it lay a yellow tooth.
Some remarked that the tooth must be a great relic, while others, after muttering how dingy and carious it was, instead paid an ox to the traveling Shaman, whose Relic was much larger.
Soon thereafter came the harvest season, and those who had touched the Tooth of the Wise One bred their oxen, and had much milk and meat to eat. Those who had parted with their oxen for the privilege of touching the traveling Shaman's secret Relic grew a bit thin, and had to beg -- but proclaimed to all who'd listen that their great good fortune was coming with the next moon, or rounding the nearest hill.
The well fed amongst the townspeople later celebrated their harvest solstice, and, raising their elder on a wicker chair, carried the old man around the village in thanks for their prosperity and health.
As they brought him to the village square, cheering, he waved them silent, then paused.
And slowly broke into a huge yellow grin with one gap.
Thus, to find good fortune, don't throw your fortune away.


May 31, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Terrorists, The Diplomats
Lands of ancient beauty were torn between two peoples, bounded by barbed wire, concrete barricades and snipers -- but even more by the deepest chasm of hate.
Wherever a hand was raised in salutation, it was dismembered by the bombs of terrorists.
Whenever a peace treaty requiring disarmament and cessation of violence was signed, so too was it dismembered, by even one lone man's bitter or ecstatic instant of murder.
And, in response to murder, murder was returned ten-fold.
So did the chasm of hatred deepen, until there was no way to bridge it -- no way to stop the apotheosis of slaughter.
Yet, one day, two diplomats, haggardly shuffling through the jutting bones of their murdered peace accord as amongst the unburied dead, stood across the chasm of hatred, staring at one another.
And one called out, across the chasm.
"No more preconditions before we negotiate!"
And the other agreed, calling back, "We must divide our land between our peoples, and do it now! We must never again halt negotiation, even in the face of terrorism!"
"For that is terror's purpose -- to stop us from talking!"
And the chasm of hatred still loomed deep -- but thereafter none looked down.
Thus, to defeat terrorism, ignore it.


May 24, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated with hope to the emerging peace negotiations between Syria and Israel.
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The Table, The Mensal Ideal
Commissioned to craft a table of exquisite richness and beauty was a carpenter.
As hours merged into days, the carpenter's young son watched him lathe the finest of his hardwoods, and trim intricate inlays.
So interested grew he, that the son soon asked, "Father, may I craft a table too?"
The carpenter agreed.
Leading his son to a corner of the workshop, the carpenter gave him carving tools and a handsaw, and the boy set to work.
In the eventide as they carved, the bare arms of father and son were burnished in the rays of the red sun.
The following Sunday they walked to the workshop, to see each other's craft.
Upside down, on velvet cloth, lay the father's table on his workbench. The boy ran up to it, running his tiny fingers along the polished skin of its smoothly inset legs.
"Oh, father, turn it over!"
When the carpenter turned over his table and set it upright and solid onto the floor, a maze of inlaid woods and patterns gleamed.
"Father! It's as sturdy as a turtle -- and prettier than one, too! It's the finest table in all Creation!"
His father laughed.
"Maybe so," he replied, "but let's see your table, my son."
The boy ran to his table, which sat upside down on the floor -- where he'd spent an hour alone the past night hammering in its legs, repeatedly.
"Look, father," he said, "my table is ready too!"
But when the boy picked up the table and stood it upright, it wobbled -- and when, agog with dismay, he pushed down on its heavy top, the table's spindly legs splayed out like a dead dog's and it toppled flat.
"Oh, father!" the boy wailed.
But the carpenter put his hand on his son's shoulder and bent down to face him.
"Now, now, it's just the joints weren't true -- I'll show you how to fit 'em proper."
And by Sunday lunch, the carpenter's son had made his first table -- and when he ate his porridge off it, it'd never tasted so good.
Thus, what is disjointed will not stand.


May 17, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the victims of the Sichuan Earthquake and of lax enforcement of earthquake-proof school construction standards.
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The Stormy Day, The Sunny Day
Bent did their leaders become from the mantle of power.
They went before the people and proclaimed, "A great storm approaches! It threatens our lives and happiness!"
Pounding their lecterns and grasping their microphones, they cried, "We are mobilizing our army, to patrol the streets, suppress rioting, and protect the citizens of our land."
"We declare martial law!"
The people were stunned.
Many peered into the skies, but saw only a clear and calm horizon -- and newspaper forecasts had told only of bright, sunny skies, not storm-whipped devastation.
A few asked aloud, "Where are the storms?" But they were beaten and carried off in trucks by armed soldiers.
The newspapers and television channels at first declared no evidence for a storm. But the army poured money into the pockets of their owners, and pushed guns into the faces of others. Soon every news article and nightly broadcast proclaimed catastrophe was to rain from the sky.
Most of the people scuttled quickly from their homes to their cars, and from their cars to their workplaces, and stared upward at the clear blue skies, always searching.
But others -- a very few -- stared at the armed guards on the streets, and then stared upward at the televised faces of their great leaders, always searching.
Until these very few grew into a multitude...
And then, a storm.
Thus, black is not white -- no matter who says it is.


May 10, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the citizens of Burma, murdered in the many thousands by the hands of their Myanmar Regime, from the cyclone it proclaimed "nonexistent."
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The Grey Squirrels, The Colored Squirrels
By a bubbling creek meandered a lush backyard garden.
In this garden dwelled not only birds, garden snakes, toads and worms, but also grey squirrels.
The biggest and most well-fed of the animals, they were lords of the yard -- where all but the angriest of crows fled from them, once they charged to hoard nuts and seeds. Their bright white bellies gleamed in the afternoon sun when they sat up to regard their domain.
But when they crouched back down, their grey tops were somewhat dreary to look upon.
Then one day a motley crew of new squirrels came to the garden. They scampered onto a branch and stood tall for all to see: A small red squirrel; a pure black squirrel; a fawn-colored squirrel; and a pure white squirrel.
Each was much smaller than the fat grey squirrels, and so were no match for them in hoarding nuts and seeds.
But they were fast, and so colorful!
When they scampered around the trees and grass, playing tag with the grey squirrels, in the garden a rainbow danced.
And the days were no longer as dreary to look upon.
Thus, sameness dulls the spirit's palate, while diversity and its combinations are the spice of life. -- via Star Trek


May 3, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
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The Begrudged, The Embraced
Death stood at the foot of their hospital beds -- a badly dressed physician prescribing only morphine.
In no great rush, He observed the two men.
Reminiscing, as the old and ill are wont to do, the first man said, "My life was filled with wasted moments. I avoided learning, because lessons seemed too much bother. I avoided travel, because I worried about drinking the water. And I avoided dating, because I worried how I'd break it off!"
The second man looked over at the first, and recalled, "I took those lessons -- and learned enough to see how foolish I am. I traveled to Paris -- and got sick. I loved a woman, and never left her -- but she left me."
The first man stared at the blank wall of the ward, and began to cry.
"Now it's too late for me to do anything but die!"
Death stirred.
But then the second man gently replied, "Well, it's not really that late. Do you like chess?"
The first man wiped his eyes and turned to measure the face of his temporary savior.
And Death looked about for a seat.
Thus, embrace life, do not begrudge it.


April 26, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Flat World, The Round World
A voice in a faceless crowd proclaimed, "The World is flat!"
The people all chattered, "Of course he's right! We can see the edge of the World -- it's right over there!" And they pointed to the far horizon of the sea, where the red sun flashed green ere vanishing beneath the waters.
But a second man cried, "Wait! The edge looks so close! How can we sail for days upon days into the West, and lose sight of the mountains of our home, if the World is flat? Might not the World actually be round?"
And the people catcalled and hurled rotten fruits and cabbages at him.
"It's flat! Just look at the horizon!" they jeered.
Yet the second man believed that perhaps the World was round, but also very large -- and so just seemed flat, as his bald pate might seem to a tiny louse.
So he fashioned a telescope, using a long hearing-aid tube and two pieces of polished glass.
Then every morning he sat on the dock and stared at the horizon with his scope, pausing only to wipe its lenses free of salt-spray, and to gaze fiercely at passersby who cajoled him.
But then one afternoon, he startled and darted to his feet, one hand still holding the telescope to a gawking eye.
Through its lenses he could see a crow's nest - only a crow's nest -- rising slowly above the waters, its red and white flag flapping on the tall mast.
"Look!" he pointed to the horizon and cried to a small crowd of passersby, "Look! The mast of a galleon rises from the sea, but with no galleon yet seen beneath it! The World is not flat -- it is round! Round!"
A large rotten cabbage smashed into his beaming face, and his telescope dropped into the sea.
Thus, the whole world can still be wrong.


April 19, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Infallible, The Fallible
Proclaimed throughout the land was a prophet among men.
On the day of his investiture, he strode in his dark, flowing robes through a jubilant army of followers, to a granite knoll.
Turning to look down upon the crowd, he raised high a wooden staff in his right fist.
"I am the voice of God on earth!" he cried. "My edicts are to be obeyed, on pain of imprisonment!"
The people believed, and wailed -- some in ecstasy, others in fear. Ere the blooming tulips in the prophet's garden began to curl, did his edicts lead to the enslavement of women in the land, and the imprisonment and execution of all who did not believe in the prophet's god.
Once too proclaimed throughout another land, was a leader among men.
On the day of his inauguration, he strode in his dark, tailored suit through a jubilant throng of voters, to a granite podium.
Turning to look down upon the crowd, he raised his clenched right fist.
"I am now your leader!" he cried. "My edicts are to be obeyed, on pain of imprisonment!"
The people disbelieved, and wailed -- in anger. Ere the cut tulips in the leader's inaugural vase began to wilt, did his edicts lead to his own banishment.
Thus, your mind is the property of neither man nor god.


April 12, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the new democracies of Bhutan and Nepal, and the struggle for freedom in Tibet.
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The Ember, The Fire
Rain hissed along the thatch roof of a hut on the moor.
Inside the hut, an old man and his grandchild sat staring into the fireplace, where burned a single log.
"Tend to the fire, grandson," said the old man, as he went outside to feed their mule.
But the grandson lay back, arms behind his head, and daydreamed. Soon he dozed off.
When the old man returned to the fire, nothing remained of it except a small pile of black ash with a single, glowing-red ember.
"I told you to tend the fire, child!" the old man chided the boy. Then he gathered fine, dried root and straw, dipped them into the ember, and gently blew on it.
And, once more, flames sprang into life, reflected as a dancing glow in the old man's eyeglasses.
As he hefted a new log to the fire, he turned again to his chastised grandson. "Remember, young one, any fire shall die when nothing burns within."
"Including," he added, poking his lazy grandchild's chest, "the fire in there!"
Thus, endeavor is the flame that must consume you.


April 5, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Chatterer, The Converser
Live with a chatterbox to learn how not to listen, the man thought.
His wife chattered all day long. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the monologue, all he heard was, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
But then, one day, he heard, "Blah, blah, blah, blah...Darling, are you unhappy?"
His ears perked up. "What did you say?"
"I said," his wife repeated, "are you unhappy?"
"Well, no, but..."
"But what?" she asked.
"Well, we rarely talk," he confessed.
"What do you mean? We talk all the time!" she blurted, then paused. "Don't we?"
"Well, dear, no -- we don't. You talk, I listen -- or try to, at least. But not very well..."
"I am a bit of a chatterbox, aren't I?" she replied with rue.
Her husband rose from his newspaper, put his arms around her and hugged her gently.
"Not now, you aren't. Right now we are talking." He kissed her on the cheek, and then said, "Let's discuss the news, shall we?"
"Let's!" she exclaimed.
And together they sat down, at first tentatively, and then later without embarrassment, to a real discussion.
Thus, don't just broadcast your thoughts -- share them.


March 29, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Asleep, The Awake
Philosophy was the siren who lured two students to distant shores.
When they met upon their return, they clasped arms -- those of the first now as wan and frail as balsa, and of the second as thick as oak.
"I hiked through monsoon-swept plains and high mountains," the first student said, "and sat in the temples of many different beliefs, and so attained complete wisdom."
He then smiled and bowed his head.
"This life is but part of a dream, and living or dying matters not."
Hearing his frail compatriot say this, the second student frowned.
"I too have seen much," he replied. "I've trodden far island continents, and sat in outback campfires, listening to lyrics that were sung before recorded history began, and so attained new knowledge."
But then the second student gently tightened his grip on his frail friend's luminously thin arms, as if to hold him to the earth.
"My friend, what happens to us in life, and in dreams, all matters."
Yet the first student, now uncaring of his own life, refused to eat, grew skeletal and wasted away to death.
At his funeral, his compatriot picked up a handful of black dirt and dropped it on the bones of his friend.
Then he continued on, eating, living and dreaming -- and in listening to his dreams, found new paths to tread.
Thus, life does not awaken to a dream -- dreaming awakens life.


March 22, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Acorn, The Oak
An acorn lay rotting.
Carried far away from its mother-tree by an overly busy squirrel, it was abandoned in the black earth.
For the squirrel, being not so smart, forgot where he'd buried it -- and so the acorn was consigned to molder in its grave for all time, lost to memory or kindly regard.
Yet the following year, from the flesh of the acorn grew the smallest of shoots.
It fought for the light of the sun, pushed through dead leaves and blades of grass, and swelled into the tiniest of plants.
Over the years, the plant fought to live, persisting without cease or rest, and grew.
And grew.
So, in the fullness of time, arose the mightiest Oak that ever existed -- from a forgotten and discarded shred of another's callous feast.
Thus, to transform into what will be, what is must pass away.


March 15, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Passenger, The Driver
The car wound its sinuous way along the backcountry.
Its driver, a wide grin on her face, craned her neck as she passed grazing Hereford cows and cantering white and fawn-colored horses.
She smelled violet-carpeted hillsides, topped with bales of hay curled up like cinnamon buns, through her half-lowered, dirt-streaked window as she drove beneath tall oak boughs.
She gazed off to the horizon -- at careening, distant blue vistas of mountainsides and river valleys -- as the car jounced on the rutted, golden-brown clay road.
She was so glad.
Then her passenger, snoring until the last bend in the road, suddenly awoke, glanced around under his disheveled bangs, then, trying to steady himself as the sky rolled up and down and side to side, turned to her and grumpily remarked, "Wha...what happened to the highway?"
His voice warbled like he was sitting on a two-bit vibrating bed in a cheap motel.
"And where are we going?!"
Brown hair bouncing around her face, she laughed as she answered.
"We're already there!"
Thus, drive or be the passenger in your life's journey.


March 8, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Act, The Consequence
In a shantytown held fast like a barnacle on the hull of a city sailing for a far horizon, two boys squatted on the stoop of a tin shack.
Dealers approached them offering hashish.
The first boy rose from the stoop, bought a bag of weed, placed it in his jacket pocket, and trotted home to smoke it.
His dealer counted his money, then ordered more hashish from his supplier -- who, in the crossfire of a gunfight with competing suppliers, shot a young student.
A young student who one day would have designed an economical solar water-purifier, saving millions from dysentery.
The second boy remained sitting on the stoop, and refused to buy hashish.
The second dealer, growing angry, slapped the boy and chased him through the teeming alleys -- but fell short on his sales that day, and ordered nothing from his supplier.
That supplier was ignored during a later turf battle -- and a girl on the street was saved from being shot.
A girl whose granddaughter would one day lead a continent to outlaw land mines.
Thus, the world can rise or fall with the lifting of one finger.


March 1, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Moon, The Sun
Under the parental gaze of the Sun and the Moon, the tribe lived bright days and starry nights.
In the tribe lived a wise Elder.
After a young tribeswoman had refused a suitor's overture to wed, and been shunned by the tribesmen for her refusal, she ran crying to the Elder -- who sat, walking stick by her side in the dirt, enjoying the shade of a large tree not quite as old as herself.
The young woman kneeled before the Elder, plucked at the hem of her shift, and confessed.
"Elder, I don't want to marry! If I marry, I must raise babies! But I want to start a business, and cultivate the fields and markets for my livelihood -- not be a husband's wife for it!"
The Elder grimaced, picked up her walking stick and slowly scratched sigils in the dirt.
Then, nodding to herself, she pointed her stick up into the skies, her long white hair blowing across her face in the breeze.
"Up there, what do you see?"
The young woman looked up and, squinting, said, "I see the Sun."
"And later, at dusk?"
"We will see the full Moon," the young woman replied.
"And why will it be full?" the Elder asked, with a wrinkled smile.
"Well," replied the young woman, "because it is facing the Sun and reflecting its light! But...but what does this have to do with my marriage?!"
The Elder laughed, then waved her stick between the far horizons.
"The Sun or the Moon! In their arms we dwell! Each brings us joy, each has value -- the Sun gives us life, and the Moon reminds us of the Sun's constancy."
"But it is your choice, not mine! It is up to you whether you will be the Sun or the Moon!"
Thus, radiate, or magnify the radiance of others -- but know the role you've chosen.


February 23, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Rabbit, The Mole
Venturing into the nest of a Rabbit was a tiny shrew.
The shrew raised its pointy nose -- and the two shiny black dots on its face that pass for eyes among shrews -- and shouted upward at the Rabbit and her nursing kits.
"My, your grass nest is so well woven, and lined so snugly with fur, I could live here myself! If I didn't have an urge to dig tunnels, that is!"
The mother Rabbit, complimented and somewhat amused, wiggled her nose at the talkative shrew, and returned her placid gaze to her young ones.
Strolling out of the Rabbit's nest, the shrew then chanced upon a large black hole in the grass -- the mouth of a long tunnel that hunched its back like a whale sounding the Sargasso Sea. The shrew took one look at the deep hole, and dove beneath the sea of grass.
Scampering madly downward through the dimly lit tunnel, he tripped over blades of half-chewed grass, chips of discarded twigs, and tufts of matted grey fuzz and empty bug armor. His nose even drew him to -- and skirting by -- small piles of that which we all make, but shouldn't leave sitting around.
"Stinky, stinky..." the shrew mumbled as his nose hairs blasted outward from nostrils big enough to engulf his tiny eyes.
And onward he dove.
Then, in the deepest, darkest bend of the tunnel, the shrew ran head on into the plush rear of the tunnel's maker -- a big grey Mole.
The shrew hopped over the Mole's bowed head, and once again lifted up its pointy shrew nose, which nearly met the Mole's drooping, leafy nose.
Their two pairs of eye-specks pretended to scrutinize each other, while the shrew sniffed madly, and the Mole sniffed sadly.
And then the shrew shouted to the Mole.
"My, your tunnel is a real mess! Why, it even stinks! Can you concentrate on digging, and on finding a big, fat huggly female mole, when old, chewed-up bug legs poke you in your soft pink belly, my friend?"
The shrew grabbed a piece of fuzz and tucked it under a foreleg.
"Let's clean this place up, and I'll be happy to live here with you!"
And up the tunnel scampered the shrew, followed by the somewhat browbeaten but strangely relieved Mole, to clean up their home.
Thus, without order comes odor.


February 16, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Forceful, The Persuasive
Rulers of men oft rise at night.
Come into power upon the hastened death of his predecessor, he quickly cast off all whose ability threatened his supremacy. He declared himself king, and when he barked his imperial orders, those who disobeyed or hesitated were exiled or executed.
One day he was to receive in his royal court the Leader of a powerful neighboring country.
"This is a Leader?" the king asked, laughing, as his courtiers briefed him about the man he would soon meet. "He did not usurp power, but asked the people for it? He can be removed from power simply by a majority vote?"
He smirked. "And he has never held an Army commission, nor ever fired a gun! Hah!"
It shall be a simple matter to dominate this man in our trade negotiations, the king thought to himself.
As the Leader of the other country entered the throne room, the king ordered him, "Kneel!"
As the Leader kneeled, the king saw his face -- a face of complete calm and equanimity.
The king became angered. "Why aren't you afraid of me, little man! I could have you executed!"
The Leader replied, "So you could, but my people wish you to have this."
He passed a scroll to the king, who handed it on to his general and demanded it be read before the royal court.
Thus did the general read aloud the Leader's letter to the king -- who heard its words with growing incredulity and horror: "O King, we, the people of your neighboring country, have massed a great army and navy in support of our Leader, whom we love. Our economy is strong, and our armed forces are unified and at the ready in his support. We wish you well, but know that our Leader is to return unharmed, or your small military takeover will see this day its last day."
The Leader then said to the suddenly perspiring king, "It is my gift of persuasion that is my power. Using it I've led my people into prosperity. My might is their gratitude." Then the Leader gestured casually around him.
"Yet, look here, at the faces of all the men around you, O King. If gratitude resided there, indeed I would be afraid. But all I see is fear and hatred of you. In my country, these men would lay down their lives for their leader -- here, they will not."
The king, in his fear and rage, exploded.
"Kill him, and may war come!"
The king's general steeled himself, strode forward, unsheathed his sword, and, sinews steady, raised it high -- and brought it down not upon the Leader's neck, but upon his own king's.
After the thump of the head, the king's bejeweled body collapsed to the ground with the sound of dry leaves and tinkling chimes.
"Our King, the fool!" muttered the general, as he sheathed his bloody sword.
He turned to face the Leader. "If your people will agree to trade with us as peaceful neighbors, I will instate free elections for our people, too."
Thus, the power of muscle is weaker than the power of reason.


February 9, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to U.S. Super Tuesday's primaries and caucuses.
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The Dreaming Woman, The Seeing Woman
Born on the same day in the same village, two women grew up as friends.
One was born into poverty, and saw early that work -- either hers or her poor father's -- supplied the money to buy food and goods.
The second woman was born into wealth, and never accepted that someone's work was needed for her to eat or have fine things at her whim.
Then war cast both women anew into poverty.
The first woman portaged vegetables to market to earn enough to feed herself, and planned to save a little each day to start a small weaving business.
But the second woman refused to believe her ill fortune. Crawling into a cardboard box in the burned out basement of her ruined mansion, she slowly succumbed to the elements.
As she lay dying, dreaming of the life she'd lost, her moans were heard by her friend -- who lay down her basket of vegetables and dug through the rubbish to her side, raising her up.
"Why do you not see the way things are now?" she scolded. "Get up and weave baskets with me, and live. Or else dream your life away."
She placed her hands on her destitute friend's face, turned it toward the unrelenting day, and opened her eyelids.
"Decide! For you have no time left to dream of what is no more."
Tears rose in the dark well of the eyes.
The destitute woman saw the truth in her friend's words, and knew her refusal to see "what is" would change the world not in the slightest, but would indeed change her into a dead woman.
She stood up from the rubbish of her past, and together they wove baskets in the hope of a better life.
Thus, it is better to see what is and dream of what may be, than to shut your eyes to what is and dream of what cannot be.


February 2, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to those who've fallen in the arena, yet who rise again.
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The Dragon's Breath, The West Wind
Nigh on their 13th year, two boys became explorers.
With but small knapsacks thrown over their shoulders, the boys ran out of town and far into the mountain foothills -- chasing after a caravan of gypsies slowly rolling toward the Western Lands.
Seeing the boys run after them, the King of the Gypsies raised his gnarled hand from the forward wagon. The music and the caravan stilled.
"Please, Gypsy King, may we explore the world with you?" asked one of the boys, a tall, lithe lad, while the other, runty boy huffed for breath.
The King looked back at the distant plains town, and at the protruding ribs of the boys, and knew neither had family that would care enough to retrieve them. Then he stared at the boys with a piercing green eye, and said, "But do you, my children, have the guts to be true explorers?"
The boys looked at each other in confusion, then the runty, breathless one gasped, "Test us, King! I am not scared!"
"But you should be, boy. You should be!" said the King, glowering down at the ragged twosome while fingering his gold earring.
The Gypsy King then lifted his great oaken staff, and pointed toward a high cleft in the mountains ahead.
"There lies the only pass to the West!"
He looked down at them, and then yelled above the blowing wind, "But in the pass lies a Dragon, whose breath burns! I have spells to keep the Dragon in slumber, but they shall not avail you today!"
"All, all who seek to join my kingdom must pass by the Dragon on cat's feet, and awaken him not. If I find you whole, and not a little pile of ash, on the other side of the pass, you are a true adventurer -- and will be welcome to join my clan and sit by my fire, as my son, forever under the stars."
The King's tattooed and white-bearded face then loomed baleful. "But, if you retreat to this side of the pass, it is homeward and hearth-bound for you, such as your home may be!"
"Now go! The Dragon begins to awake!" The Gypsy King gestured with his staff toward the mountain pass, his hair blowing wildly in rising gusts of warm wind.
The two boys looked up at the pass, saw rippling waves of heat billow from its jagged maw, and their tongues swelled and their knees knocked.
But the runty boy then shook himself like a wet dog, and ran ahead, calling, "Quickly, let's go now!"
Catching up to the smaller boy at the foot of the pass, the taller boy pulled him back, yelling past the howling, hot breath streaming from its great, rocky gap. "Wait! You can feel the hot breath of the Dragon, and you can hear it rushing out of his jaws!"
He stared into the slitted eyes of the runty boy. "That Gypsy King is sending us to our death! Maybe he has no spell to quiet the Dragon -- maybe we're his sacrifice to it! I wanted adventure, but not this!"
The runty boy stared up into the sweaty pallor of his playmate's face, and in that moment knew they would be parted forever. "What did you expect adventure was? Maybe it is death to run by the Dragon -- but I wanted adventure, not home!"
"And now I've got it!" And the runty little boy turned and dashed into the blowing chasm, and disappeared.
Crying for his friend, and fearful of being caught and murdered by the Gypsy King, the taller boy skirted the oncoming caravan, catching one glimpse of the King's frowning face as he ran back down the foothills for his home and hearth -- to live a somewhat boring, but fear-free, life as a farmer.
The caravan of the Gypsy King rolled on, into the blowing mountain pass, and disappeared from the Eastern Lands.
As the caravan's lead wagon, where sat the Gypsy King, rounded the last bend of the pass, the hot wind of the Western Desert blew ferociously past him. And there, in the middle of the path, stood the little runty boy, staring down at the great desert, arms raised to the warm blast of air, his ragged clothes whipping madly about him.
The child turned to see his new father, the King, and yelled in joy.
Thus, explore your emotion -- for it also is your teacher.


January 26, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the explorers among us.
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The Has-been, The Will-be
Youth frolics.
And these twin sisters were very youthful. What regard needed they for the world?
But, as young persons are wont to do, once they grew in size and experience so too did they grow in spirit and ambition.
Soon thereafter they strode into the world to refashion it in the image of what they thought it should be -- the first as a lawyer and judge, the second as a businesswoman.
Yet, as the years of their lives piled up like falling leaves, the sisters, once identical, became very different.
Walking in the city park, the judge, now advanced in years and just-retired from the bench, muttered to her sister, "I dreamed of one day being a political leader, and passing laws to help our city. But I never risked it, and it'll never happen now. I'm just an old has-been!"
She sagged with this confession, her face weighted down by each one of many years of regret.
Her twin sister's eyes glowed within the ashen kindling of her wrinkled brows.
"Sis, I just retired, too! The bums on my company's Board of Directors tossed me out on my wrinkled old butt!"
But she then spryly cackled, her face turning into the wind, white hair blowing from her lined face, and, raising her arms, yelled at the day.
"But I'm starting a new company! And this one will be a non-profit charity!"
She then poked her amazed sister in the ribs.
"And you, you old hag, isn't it time you put your name on the voters' ballot?"
Thus, you aren't a "has-been" until you surrender your final dream.


January 19, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Remora, The Ray
Fathomless was the ocean wherein lived a Remora and a Ray.
The Remora was a thin little fish, and, fearing to sound the depths of the ocean, it used a sucker on its forehead to hitch a ride -- upon the ghostly belly of a fearsome, great white shark, to whom it was way too small to bother eating.
Wherever the shark roamed, there too dangled the Remora.
Whatever the shark ate, underneath it was the Remora -- to scoop up its leavings, pick off its skin parasites, or swallow the glistening krill that billowed up from undersea rivers with each great thrust of the shark's tailfin.
So did the Remora live a long and somewhat comfortable life, stuck to the belly of another.
But sometimes, the Remora confessed to itself, it despaired of the view above.
In those same salty seas swam the Ray -- a thin fish from one view, but quite wide from another.
It swam free and sounded the blackest depths of the ocean, gliding along the silty bottom as if a wing in air -- using its strength, and its stinger, to postpone that sudden fate which befalls us all.
So did the Ray, in its equally long life, travel only where it pleased and eat only what it pleased.
And, most satisfying of all, the view above was vast and endless.
Thus, you are responsible for your own happiness.


January 12, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton.
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The Bettor, The Player
Jovial little towns spackle the Deep South, but one was more spackled than most - for there was held a spitting contest.
Men and women swilled up black coffee or, if they could stand the stink, tobacco spit, placed two fingers to their mouths as if they held an invisible cigarette, and jetted streams of black fluid into the air -- to splat, they prayed, a far piece down a long sheet of virgin white newspaper roll.
Two old men sat nearby in green-and-white checkered lawn chairs during the team play, betting on which team would pull off a win.
"Yer team ain't got no chance," one yelled to the other, "'cuz they all little boys an' girls!"
"Yeahup," agreed the second old man, resigned. He then shrugged his shoulders, slowly stood up with his crooked old back and bowed old legs, and shuffled off.
Only later, when the first old man saw the second old-timer shuffle up to a new paper roll, with a team number safety-pinned on his sunken chest, right below his scrawny chicken-neck -- and when he saw that old, bent twig of a man arch back at his knees and spew a chaw so far off the chart that the crowd screamed in delight -- did the first old man realize that he'd lost his bet.
And that it was time for him, too, to get off his old butt -- and put his mouth where his money was.
Thus, do one thing, and you've done something.


January 5, 2008, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2008 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to you who do a new thing this new year.

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The Human, The Sentient
One day a human looked up into the zenith of the heavens, arcing above her blue and green-swathed Earth.
She saw a small, cloudy galaxy far, far away -- Canis Major, pulled along like a puppy on a leash of a billion stars.
The human felt a lonesome chill in her heart, and heard a distant voice calling to her -- and wondered, "Is there anybody out there?" She devoted her life to listening to the radioed songs of the spheres -- listening for but one word, one tune, one message.
And she pointed her antennae to Canis Major.
But there was only silence.
One day, a million years hence, a sentient will look up into the zenith of the heavens, arcing above its small, blue and red-swathed world.
It will see a huge galaxy spiraling above it, so, so close -- the Milky Way, pulling its own galaxy into her vast, slow embrace.
The sentient will feel a lonesome chill in its center, and hear a distant voice calling to it -- and wonder, "Is there anybody out there?" It will devote its life to listening to the radioed songs of the spheres -- listening for but one word, one tune, one message.
And it will point its antennae into the arms of the Milky Way.
And shall hear.
Thus, we are not alone, and we have a purpose.


Parable of the Year, New Year's Eve, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton. The Parable of the Year is dedicated to SETI (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and to the memory of its greatest proponent, Carl Sagan; to Louis Leakey's Angels -- Jane Goodall, Biruté Galdikas, and the memory of Dian Fossey, who have fought to save humanity's closest cousins; to David Brin, and Al Gore, who have revealed new possibilities; and to all who fight for sapient life's noble future. May all who did well now rest, and may all the rest now do well.

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The Spectator, The Participant
Two men each had a small, black-and-white television set.
On their TVs they watched the happenings of the day -- slippered feet perched upon cushions, hands dipped in bowls of pretzels and popcorn, potato chips and onion dip.
And the years changed only the size of their bellies.
Then, one day, the news channels showed the death of one hundred thousand souls in a far distant land -- due simply to a lack of water purifiers.
Sitting on their couches, both men watched the carnage and misery on their small, black-and-white TV sets -- and they each stood up, put on their pants, combed their hair, and walked out of their apartments.
Later that day, both returned home.
The first, carrying a wide-screen color TV.
The second, carrying five hundred water filters and a plane ticket to a far distant land.
Thus, live life -- not witness it.


December 21, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to you who give of yourselves or the bounty you create.

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The Resigned, The Revolutionary
Born into poverty, near the army base of an invading power, were two sisters.
Without food, their parents forced them to prostitute themselves for money to feed the family.
One sister, pulling at her filthy dress and twisting a strand of oily hair, whispered to the other, "I know you hate this. I do too!" But the glint of hatred in her eyes faded into dullness, and her head dropped.
"This is how the world has always been," she sighed.
But her sister stood and gazed with determination at her downtrodden sibling. "Sister," she replied, "our world is what we make of it!"
She then belted her rancid smock, leaned down and kissed the bowed head of her sister, and grabbed her only pair of shoes - one black, one brown.
"I love you, my sister, but no more will I feed my parents with my own body."
"Today, I begin a new world for women like you and me!"
And she marched out of her brothel -- and into other brothels, and schools and churches, in all the neighboring villages -- to recruit those like her to become resistors, educators, employers, and politicians.
To so change the world in her image.
Thus, revolution begins with one turn.


December 14, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Minnow, The Salmon
From a mountain spring burst the Water of Life, flowing to the grey, salty ocean far below.
Over rocks and valleys the living water split into endless cascades, and each cascade was unique unto itself.
But all still rushed down toward the grey, quiet horizon.
One moment, in one such cascade, was born a Minnow. Briefly the brightly colored Minnow tarried in a small eddy, but soon was caught up in the mighty rush of water and hurtled down into the grey ocean, and was lost.
Also in that moment, in another such cascade, was born a Salmon. But the brightly colored Salmon did not drift downward with the rushing waters. It skipped and leaped up and across, from cascade to cascade.
Although the living water in which it was conceived rushed without cease to the grey ocean, the bright Salmon continued on.
Thus, do not let your ideas die with you -- let them leap.


December 7, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Fist, The Hand
A great commander assembled his lieutenants for war.
One lieutenant asked him, "Sir, your former compatriot and long-since foe has offered parley upon the plain of battle. Shouldn't we respond to his overture?"
"From this enemy? No," the commander replied.
Confused, the lieutenant asked why.
"You are new to my staff, are you not?" The commander rose from the head of the conference table, gesturing to the lieutenant to also stand, then walked around the table to him.
The commander reached down to the table, plucked an almond from a silver dish full of nuts, and offered it to the lieutenant.
"Have an almond, lieutenant."
As the lieutenant looked down and picked the nut from the commander's extended palm, the commander asked him, "How do you know when a former friend has become your implacable enemy?"
The lieutenant pondered, and then replied, "I don't know, sir."
"Eat your nut, lieutenant."
The lieutenant quickly popped it into his mouth and chewed it.
"You look hungry. Please, have another," the commander said as he picked up and extended to him a second almond.
But as the lieutenant reached out to take the second almond, the commander closed his palm around it into a fist -- which slowly reared back and then suddenly loomed in the lieutenant's surprised face.
The lieutenant found himself lying on his back on the carpet, blood dripping from one nostril down into his ear.
The commander dropped the nut, bent over him and solicitously reached down his open hand, saying, "Here, son, let me help you up."
But the lieutenant brushed away his hand.
The commander straightened, smiled with satisfaction, and said, "So, you do know, after all."
Thus, to become a fist, the open hand will first close.


November 30, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Retreat, The Charge
Dark thickets and ravines shrouded the countryside.
Toward this spectral wood ran two young sisters, on an urgent task from the town to carry medicine to their grandmama.
But upon hearing a hooting owl and the rustling of animals in the murky undergrowth beneath the old, gnarled trees, the sisters skidded to a halt and froze, faces blanching.
Beyond lay only mist.
The elder sister, eyes wide and voice trembling, grasped at her younger sister's tiny hand and murmured, "We must turn back and walk around this woods!"
A hiss like the quenching of fired metal burst from her little sister's pursed lips.
"No!" she replied, with steel in her eyes and voice. "That was just an owl, and that rustling was probably rabbits!"
She stood rapier-straight.
"Our grandmama is ill! This is the only way to get the medicine to her fast!"
"I won't go, not this way!" the older sister cried. "Maybe we can search for another way through or around?"
"You know there's only one way!" the younger sister said with finality, and urgently reached for the medicine.
As her big sister, stomach clenched from fear and indecision, passed her the small package, the young girl held it close to her chest, took a deep breath, narrowed her eyes, and plunged into the dark woods to save her grandmama.
Thus, sometimes the only way out is through. -- via Robert Frost


November 23, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Years, The Momentum
Youth and elder, they found each other, joined by infirmity, sitting on a park bench.
In talking, they found they were both near the end of their days, from untreatable illnesses -- the old man's after a lifetime of traveling and seeing the world, and the young woman's after a brief time founding and working at a shelter for battered women and children.
The old man looked pityingly on the young woman, and asked her, "Don't you find it sad that you'll die so young? While I've lived so long traveling the world and seeing so much, that I've grown tired of it?"
The young woman looked at the old man with a small smile, placed her hand on the old man's shoulder, and then asked him, "Don't you find it sad that you'll die after so long a life spent as a spectator, without advancing even one other person's life?"
"Come! Work with me in the time we remain!"
Thus, measure your life not in years, but in momentum.


November 16, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Mite, The Flea
Pedagogue and Pupil strode an ancient acropolis above a teeming city.
One evening the Pupil, dismayed at his childish writings after a long day's lessons, pounded his fist on his robed thigh and asked, "Master, do our lives even matter? Are we not insignificant?"
The Pedagogue smiled, his cheeks and forehead crinkling, as he walked. He stopped and bent down to stroke the head of a passing puppy, and brushed his hand under the dog's belly. Then he held his hand up to his Pupil's face, illuminated in a wall's torchlight.
"Look in my hand," the Pedagogue said. "What do you see?"
The Pupil looked down at his master's open hand. "Master, I see nothing in your hand."
"Look closer," the Pedagogue replied.
The Pupil's nose almost touched his master's open palm. "Master, there's nothing there!"
The Pedagogue replied, "Did you not regard a Mite, chewing on a fleck from the dog's skin -- and a Flea, poised to leap?"
"No, Master," the Pupil replied.
Then the Pedagogue extended his hand, touched his Pupil's arm briefly, and pointed up to the darkening sky. "Regard the Cosmos, my Pupil."
The Pupil looked up and stared at the stars -- but sullenly, just as doubtful of the world's significance to the cosmos as of his significance to the world.
"Agh!"
The Pupil jerked his head back down as something bit his arm. He peered at his skin in the torchlight, until he saw a tiny black speck -- the Flea, placed there by his Peripatetic mentor's touch -- digging into his skin.
The Pedagogue beamed, and said, "Now what do you see?"
Thus, like insects we seem insignificant -- until we puncture the skin of the World.


November 9, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Mousetrap, The Cheese
In the wall of a prim countryside cottage lived two mice.
One night, when the two-pawed giants lay sleeping in their quilted nests, the first mouse ventured out into the kitchen for breadcrumbs -- whereupon he espied a large hunk of cambozola.
There in the middle of the moonlit plain of linoleum tiles the cheese sat -- like an offering -- perched on a brass throne in the center of a raised, wooden dais.
Elation coursed through the mouse's little body like a crackling electric spark, sending his nose whiskers a'twitching.
"Oh," he thought to himself as he dashed up to the side of the white, blue-green marbled cheese, "life is so good!"
As his jaws clamped down on the wonderfully smelly cheese, the mousetrap upon which it sat sprung -- and, before he could have even one more fleeting, gullible thought, snapped all his thoughts off in an instant.
Another night, when the two-pawed giants again lay snoring in their nests, did the second mouse venture out onto the kitchen floor -- whereupon he too espied a large chunk of cambozola cheese, sitting on its brass throne and raised wooden dais.
The mouse dashed toward the cheese with elation coursing through his veins -- but then skidded to a halt before the dais, and pondered it.
"Oh," he thought to himself as he sniffed the cheese and the dais, "life is good -- perhaps too good? Where before there were only scattered breadcrumbs, now there is this, this offering? On this burnished throne? Of the smelliest, most wonderful of cheeses? And why does this wooden dais upon which it sits smell a bit like...soap and mouse pee?"
And so did the second mouse creep back from a fortune too cheesy to be true.
Thus, doubt is the beginning of truth.


November 2, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Proclaimer, The Achiever
Banners flapped in the breeze over the homes of two village weavers.
One weaver proclaimed to the whole village her great skill, and said she had in mind a cloak that would be as light as fog, a marvel to behold.
"As soon as I weave it, people shall come from miles away to stroke it and drape it over their shoulders, and I'll be famous throughout the land!"
The other weaver also had in mind a cloak of the finest weave and design, and too thought that people would come from miles to see and stroke it -- but she kept her silence, for, after all, she'd done nothing as yet.
The day soon came when the first weaver, swamped by the priorities of daily existence, and shunning the demands of her own dream, decided to continue loudly proclaiming her potential greatness, while postponing its birth for yet another year.
But on this same day, the other weaver, bursting with her secret dream, murmured, "Ah, to hell with busy work!"
She threw off her job, ate like a beggar, and wove.
With all her spirit, she wove the warp and weft of her soul.
And soon thereafter came the day when the first weaver gazed, dumbfounded, at a robe only she thought she could make, yet never had -- carried on the shoulders of the second weaver, who in turn was carried on the shoulders of all the villagers in celebration.
Thus, your ideas are not creations -- to be real, they must really be.


October 26, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Panda, The Roach
Zoo life became the most beautiful animal on Earth -- the Panda, who with a single coy glance melted the heart of any who chanced upon him; who with one tumbling pratfall made people burst into laughter and joy.
Yet deep in the rocks of the zoo enclosure also lived the ugliest animal on Earth -- the Roach, who by crawling onto the rocks to sun himself caused children and mothers to scream in distress; who by unfurling his buzzing wings and dangling abdomen made people burst into a dead run.
One day, the Panda came up to sniff the sunning Roach, and the Roach spread his antennae wide and said, "I wish I was like you! People would love me, and laugh when they see me! I would be so warm, and my carapace would be fuzzy, instead of shiny and smooth!"
The Panda laughed. "Hey! I was going to say the same thing!"
"What I wouldn't give to be like you!" the Panda mused, while chewing a bamboo husk. "I'd love to be able to put a scare in those people who stare at me all day! Their cooing gets on my nerves. And they laugh at me when I fall down! You never fall -- you have six legs! And I'd love to be able to fly up and away over their heads, and to eat other stuff in the dirt besides this stiff bamboo! And your carapace stays so glossy and clean, and here my fur is all yellow!"
In that moment the Panda and Roach saw each other in a new light. Both were perfect, after all - because both were the epitome of themselves.
Thus, be perfectly yourself.


October 19, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Caterpillar, The Butterfly
It was an insect who had no wings.
It longed to fly, like other beautiful insects it saw when it looked up into the clouds, but all it had ever known was anxiety -- and so it ate and ate, and grew so very fat.
"Oh, I will never fly now, nor ever be beautiful!" the insect cried, as it rolled and pitched precariously on a tiny twig, and munched a green leaf with its six little jaws. Its compound eyes scanned the heavens for a solution, but saw none there.
The poor insect grew still and cold in dismay, and then spun a silken hammock for itself to lie down in its misery. It was so anxious that it spun and spun the hammock around itself, until it shut away the entire world.
And then it cowered, and, so cowering, passed into insensate stupor.
So, much later, after time unknown to it had passed, was the insect more surprised than any other to awaken with a new purpose in its head and a new form for its body. It spread, dried and tested its newly grown multihued wings, and then, unfurling its coiled tongue and tasting for the first time the sweetness of the breeze, soared into the clouds -- alive anew.
Thus, who you are may be merely an incubator of who you can be.


October 11, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Cicada, The Beetle
Dawn rouged the pale bodies of two newborns - a Cicada and a Beetle.
The Cicada, a newly hatched but well-fed larva, dug a bed deep in the earth, and therein slept for seventeen years.
Arising on the moonlit night of a new millennium, he emerged from the Cocoon of the Earth reborn, with great rasping wings that shimmered like oil on still water.
Yet, as the Cicada flew into the night, he hurried about his business of finding a mate with desperation -- for, after sleeping most of his existence away, he had remaining to him but a few short weeks of life.
The Beetle as a pupa slept but a span of days, not years.
Arising on the first dark night after the gibbous moon, which had been a nightlight for his slumber, he emerged in armor as black and as sharp as volcanic glass.
Then he marched into the night, and to his business of building a home and winning a mate, with industry.
For he was young, strong, and the years of his future spread out wide and far beneath his armored feet.
Thus, better late than never -- but better earlier than late.


October 5, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Freeman, The Slave
As boys in the heart of summer, a freeman and a slave played together on a plantation.
The freeman child went on to a fine school and learned much about the world, while the young slave learned to read and write secretly, by moonlight.
As a grown man, the freeman returned to the cotton plantation of his childhood. Although his teachings conflicted with being a slave owner, he stifled his doubt and drove his father's slaves with a cane -- and a hardening heart. In night sweats, he cried out as he dreamed of what his slaves would do to him, were liberty to roost in the nest of their minds.
The slave saw the change in his boyhood friend, so told him nothing of the wonders of the world he'd read about in secret books brought to him by traders from beyond the plantation. Instead, as he learned what lay beyond the cotton fields, he taught his kin all he knew about right and wrong, and good and evil.
"The root of all evil," he said to them, "is refusing to think."
One day, the slave led an insurrection of his fellow slaves, and together they fled north along the Underground Railroad in search of freedom and a better life. With his farming skills and ability to read, write, and cipher, he one day became a prosperous farmer and family man, and by old age a lawyer and church deacon.
The freeman, however, had lost along with his slaves all they had known about running the plantation. He'd never bothered to learn how to run a farm, assuming all he'd ever need to know was how to run his slaves. So he was forced to sell off the plantation, acre by acre, to local small farmers, until he was left with nothing but an empty house.
Then he sat on an old rocking chair on his porch, and for the remaining years of his life drowned himself in whiskey and watched the paint flake from its eaves.
Thus, freedom is the well of reason, but one must drink from the well.


September 28, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

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The Husband & Wife, The Spouses
Dwelling on the outskirts of a city, in a small cul-de-sac, was a loving family -- a husband and wife, their two children, and their pet dog.
Each morning, as the husband walked to his car to commute to work, he looked across their small cul-de-sac at the empty windows of a house for sale, and imagined what his future neighbors would be like.
"Hope they'll be nice," he thought to himself, "and that the husband plays golf!"
Each afternoon, as the wife picked up after their young son, daughter and poodle, she stared out her bay window's curtains at the vacant house across the way, and imagined her future neighbors.
"Oh, what if the wife likes to cook? We'll share all our best recipes!"
Each day, as the young son and daughter played in the front yard, they glanced across at the empty swing before the vacant house, and imagined what the neighboring children would be like.
"Maybe they'll let us use their swing!" the sister said to her brother.
Then, one day, the "For Sale" sign was gone.
The very next morning, a moving van arrived. The husband, wife, kids, and even the poodle stared out of their bay window at a station wagon that drove up to the new home, and from which a family poured out: a boy and a girl, their Scottish terrier, and their two parents -- who hugged, kissed and held each other arm-in-arm as they strolled up to their new home behind their scampering children.
The mouths of the husband and wife peering out from the bay window fell open.
The two parents of the new family were both women.
The husband and wife turned and stared at one another. They both began to frown.
But the slamming of their screen door jarred them from their stupor. Through the bay window they saw their kids and their poodle -- feet and paws flying -- dashing across the street to welcome their new playmates and their two mommies.
Thus, marriage is a voluntary union of sapients.


September 21, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the worldwide victims of so-called "Defense of Marriage" and other homophobic or anti-gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered legislation, and to civil rights judges -- heroes in black, not white, robes.

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The Way of Taqlid, The Way of 'Aql
Proudly the tribe reigned over deserts white with sand and spotted with black pools of oil.
Although war had been thrust upon them since the grey dawn of history, until peace was a fleeting memory, among their number had lived mathematicians, astronomers, scientists and librarians -- who had saved the foundations of the Edifice of Man.
Yet, when Man learned to transmute the black oil into gold, and when the hearts of many claimed the garden from which all men arose, the land and the tribe were torn with strife 'ere unseen.
Two youths lived in that place and that time.
The first youth grew to hate all who, long before, had oppressed and driven out his people. Hearing the cries of zealous religious scholars for jihad, one sunrise after prayers he said to himself, "I will do as my scholars preach, for surely they know best, while I know so little."
Imitating so many before him, he strapped on a bomb and blew himself up inside a schoolyard, killing the children of his enemy.
Following the way of Taqlid to his murderous death, his face, in its last moment, was sadly alight with expectation.
The second youth also grew to hate his people's lot, yet saw the children of his oppressors in a different light -- as people like him, trapped by both circumstance and belief.
Whenever hatred and the call to jihad surged in his breast, he recalled the terror in the faces of not only their tribe's children but of the children of their enemy, and his struggle turned inward. He, too, prayed to Allah, but said to himself, "As the Prophet used the way of 'Aql -- of intellect and mind -- to restore our tribes to faith, so too must my shoulders carry the weight of interpreting his teachings; I must use my own intellect and mind."
"And my ijtihad, my inner struggle, tells me that murdering others is not the way to paradise, either here on earth or in the heavenly presence of Allah."
So did the second youth start a madrassa, which he named The Lifting of The Black Stone, to teach ways of peaceful cooperation and non-violent resistance taught by Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, Muhammad, Sumayya, Bahá'u'lláh, Gandhi, King, Mandela, and Suu Kyi.
And his madrassa gradually restored to his people their once and future path of logic and questioning -- the only way to transform enemy into ally; the way of war through peace.
Thus, the true jihad is ijtihad. -- via Irshad Manji


September 11, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the victims of 9/11 and of fundamentalist terrorism.

___

The Apples, The Oranges
He was a great religious orator, a Preacher of a particular religion that claimed absolute salvation for all who shared its beliefs -- and absolute damnation for all who did not.
Yet as the right hand mirrors the left, so too was there a great philosophical orator, a Mentor of a particular philosophy that claimed regard for all -- without regard to their religious or non-religious beliefs.
One day the Preacher and the Mentor espied each other across a fruit bin at a food market.
With a baleful stare, the Preacher pointed his finger straight down and cried, "Repent! Believe in God, or be damned!"
The Mentor pondered, then picked up two fruits and replied, "And which God is that? The God of apples or the God of oranges?"
"My God!" cried the Preacher, aghast.
"Exactly the problem!" replied the Mentor, as he put first one, then the other, fruit in his basket. "How tart we'd become, on a diet of only oranges. How cloying, were our bellies filled just with applesauce, apple pie, apple juice."
The Mentor then gently placed a third fruit in the Preacher's basket. "And on your exclusive diet, oh how sour have your followers become!"
The Preacher glanced down at the fruit.
It was a lemon.
Thus, religion is a garden of the spirit, to be tended in all its diversity.


September 7, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

___

The Slave, The Gladiator
Colonnades, now broken and mouldy, gleamed pink rose in the Rome where lived a slave and a wounded gladiator.
Both men had been sentenced to the arena, wherein prowled hungry lions.
They were sentenced to be the lions' food.
As they stood before the metal gate shortly to open into the arena, the slave grasped the gladiator's one good arm, looked up into his face, and yelled through the deafening roar of the crowd, "I shall kneel and show my neck, so that the lions will be able to kill me with one swift bite."
The gladiator frowned down at him. "But you gain your freedom if you pick up a sword and slay or make lame the lions!" he said. "The way your grasp is cutting off the blood to my one good arm, it is clear you have two strong hands to my one -- and you are short enough to stab the lions under their bellies. Why would you not fight for your life, and for happiness?"
"I am puny, and would never succeed! My last moments on earth would be spent hearing roars of laughter louder than the roars of the lions!" the slave cried.
"But only the Gods know our fate if we pick up the sword, little friend -- and even They might wager on us!" The gladiator laughed, and gently freed his good arm. "So I, for one, am going out to slay some lions!"
And the gate lifted.
Thus, you are a fighter by design -- and a slave only by choice.


August 31, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

___

The Pond Dwellers, The Platypus
Say God had a Claw.
If He skewered the pond with that mighty Claw, It'd poke out the other side of the world -- on the island continent from whence the Platypus came.
Ask the Platypus how he came to be in this woodland pond so far from home, he'd clap his duckbill a few times, and a silent tear would trickle down his furry face.
But one bright day, he shook off the dew beaded on his oily-smooth coat and scuttled over the muddy shoreline to greet a gaggle of wood ducks -- although they were known throughout the pond for being hoity-toity.
"Hullo!" the Platypus croaked, in a voice not unlike a toad's.
The wood ducks just stared at first, at the rubbery grey bill, furry little brown head and body, beaver tail and absurd clawed, webbed feet. Then they laughed.
"Look at him! Fur instead of bright feathers! What a duck is he!"
But the Platypus smiled, turned and dove into the very deepest part of the pond.
After being submerged so long that the ducks gaggled about the poor, clownish creature having drown'd, the Platypus burst back out of the water onto the banks -- and from his big grey bill dropped a huge, delicious salad of slimy greens and tadpole garnish.
And so the wood ducks became his fast friends.
Then one rainy day, the Platypus left his new friends and scuttled over to greet some beavers, busily constructing a mud and twig hut.
"Hullo!" the Platypus croaked, accompanying his greeting with a nice, gooshy slap of his beaver-tail on the soft mud.
The beavers turned from their work and chortled at the vision of this tiny beaver who possessed, beneath his earnest little face, no bright yellow teeth, but a duck's bill glued on his mouth.
"Go lay an egg, duck boy!" they cried.
But the Platypus smiled, reached toward a bush and with a quick snick of his sharp claws severed a huge stick. Breaking it in two with his strong little furry arms, he spun around to scoop a wad of mud with his flat tail, and tossed both the sticks and the mudball high over the beavers' heads -- to plop solidly onto the growing rim of their beaver hut.
The beavers stared at the well-platted lump of new wall, then turned back to the Platypus -- and in unison slapped their tails in welcome.
And so both the haughty wood ducks and the crude, muddy beavers became the Platypus' fast friends.
And one pink, foggy dawn, the Platypus brought them all together for a backwoods hoe-down -- where all day and into the moonlit night was heard a joyous chorale of quacks and thumping percussion.
Thus, if you are in between, be a bridge.


August 24, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

___

The Feather, The Wing
House sparrows spent their days in search of seeds to fill their busy bellies.
One sparrow spread his smooth, brown wings and flitted from tree to tree -- his masked face and black pearl eyes espying the backyards below him.
But the other sparrow hopped along the ground, wings tucked, in search of his food.
The first sparrow, observing the second, called down, "Hey! Hey! Hey, you!"
"Why don't you spread your wings and fly, instead of hopping on your claws?"
The second sparrow looked up at him and said, "Hey you, too! Here's why!"
And the second bird opened his wings to reveal a set of sorry-looking, ruffled feathers.
So misaligned were they, that the wing they fashioned wasn't sturdy enough in catching the air to easily lift a fat -- or even so much as a thin -- sparrow.
"I can barely reach the lowest tree branches with these feathers," the second sparrow sighed. "They just don't fit right."
He refolded his ragged wing-feathers, shrugged his little, stooped sparrow shoulders, and cocked his head.
"So, I live under the bushes and hop to my food."
Thus, make sure each of your wing-feathers fit together, or you will not soar.


August 17, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

___

The Forest, The Prairie
Ere the passing of the Ice Age thirty thousand years before, the tribe had lived in the great forest.
A young warrior of the tribe often leapt upon the bare back of his appaloosa to explore the meandering rivers, valleys and hills of the forest.
He felt the rough, smooth or flaking bark -- and peered at the unique lobes and spikes on the leaves -- of uncounted trees, all well-met friends.
Then, one day, roaming further than ever he had before into the dim forest undergrowth, he saw, from the east, daylight penetrate the trunks of the entire forest -- and was afraid.
Slowly, he nudged his horse eastward.
The great arches of the trees slowly separated, no longer meeting in the sky to make a bower over his head, but only reaching for each other like parted lovers.
Onward the warrior went, until, far ahead, he saw the trees simply stop -- and beyond, brilliant daylight.
So did the warrior come to the eastern edge of the great forest.
He stopped under the last of the trees, and, from their shade, gazed out at a sight he'd never before seen, nor ever imagined.
A golden prairie, vast and unending.
And a robin's-egg sky, vaulting far above the pale daylight moon.
The young warrior saw the true measure of his little forest, and his little life, and laughed while he cried.
Then, with a leap of his heart and a stroke upon the tossing mane of his appaloosa, he galloped into the Golden.
Thus, the mind is distracted by its own clutter -- to see far, leave it behind.


August 10, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

___

The Thundercloud, The Rainbow
In a virgin land, mountains loomed over deep valleys. Yet above even the tallest of these mountains marched great, stately columns of clouds -- and often their feet grew dirty.
In this land, deep in the valleys of great shadows, lived two young girls of a creek-side tribe.
When the feet of the great clouds turned black from striding over the mountains, the two girls sat together, holding at bay one another's trembling, while lightning and rain whipped the earth before them -- until the clouds had stepped over their small valley, on into the eastern mesas.
One day, the first young girl said to her friend, "I've heard of a wondrous thing!"
"It is said if one climbs to the rim of the mesas at daybreak and turns to face the greatest of thunderclouds, that, right before the torrent strikes you, you will see above the valley a circle of light. And it will shine in every color of the earth, sea and sky!"
The other girl replied, "So too have I heard this!"
But her head dropped. "Yet, to see this thing, one must stand before the tumult, and walk through it home!"
"We shall do it!" the first girl exclaimed.
But the second girl only shook her head.
"No. You must go alone. I am too afraid of the lightning and the thunder, of the winds and the rain."
And so, in the dark before dawn, when black-foot clouds strode over the western peaks and the air whipped and rumbled with the giants' wet breath, the first young girl silently donned her moccasins, and a small pack of food and oiled buffalo hide, and stepped out from her teepee.
Hearing a footfall, she turned and stared into the face of her friend.
"When you return, will you tell me of the circle of colors?" her friend asked.
The young explorer's eyes glinted with the last of the moon.
"I shall!"
Thus, you must drink from the cup of dreams, or from the cup of regret.


August 3, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton. Dedicated to the victims of the I-35W collapse, who each were on their journey.

___

The Three-Legged Stool, The Four-Legged Stool
Carpenters ran neighboring shops in a small village courtyard.
One carpenter, a well-to-do man, fashioned a satin-cushioned stool with three legs. It was lustrous, with ornate frill and spindly, curved legs -- and all who came to see it in his fancy shop window applauded its great beauty.
The other carpenter, a poorer and much less talkative man, had also fashioned a stool, but with four legs. It was boxy, much like a straight wooden chair with no back -- and all who walked by where it sat on the stoop of the second carpenter's shop ignored it, or whispered, "That poor carpenter is so boring and old-fashioned!"
Yet one day, the Chieftain, with his young prince in tow, came to the village to shop -- and all the villagers peered over each other's shoulders as the entourage marched into the courtyard of the two carpenters.
The Chieftain glanced at the rich carpenter, who, surrounded by the villagers, genuflected deeply as he gestured expectantly at the gilded, three-legged stool in the shop window.
Then the Chieftain looked at the poor carpenter, who stood alone in his shop's doorway -- and at his thick, boxy, four-legged stool.
"Which stool do you want, my son?" asked the Chieftain, turning to look down to his young boy.
"Oh, the pretty one, Father!" exclaimed the young prince.
As the crowd applauded the young prince, the Chieftain said, "Bring out the stool for my son!" The first carpenter went into his shop window, lifted out his ornate, three-legged stool from its glass enclosure, and placed it before the prince.
"Bring out that one, too!" said the Chieftain, pointing at the unadorned, wooden four-legged stool. As the crowd laughed at his drab stool, the second carpenter reached down and placed it before the young prince.
"My son," said the Chieftain, "sit on your stool."
And thus did the prince hop onto his gracefully-made, upholstered, three-legged stool, and fall flat onto his backside as the stool toppled over.
As the crowd murmured, the Chieftain reached his hand down to his son, raised him up, and brushed off the dirt from his satin-robed bottom.
"My son," he said gently, "now try this other stool."
The prince sat on the other stool gingerly, then began trying to rock it over, but it was so boxy that it refused even to wobble.
"Father, this stool isn't pretty, but it works! I want this one!"
The Chieftain smiled at his heir for the lesson he'd won that day -- and rewarded the nervous first carpenter with his thanks, but the second carpenter with his gold.
Thus, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but usefulness is not.


July 27, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 3, "Emotion's Mastery"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

___

The Wolf Pack, The Lone Wolf
They lived to roam the hills of the midnight sun.
Together the wolf pack loped across the tundra in pursuit of adventure, and of prey. Their gazes darted back and forth among themselves, their hearts and thoughts in unison, their baying a chorus.
The pack was merciless to those wolves who, from the grey blush of age or the loss of vigor, fell behind. It turned upon them and rendered them, devouring their flesh, before running onward.
But one Lone Wolf was the strongest and most fearless of them all. Farthest-seeing, tallest-eared and keenest-nosed, he raced like the blowing wind, and leapt ahead of the pack, running free into lands far beyond the horizon.
In winter's long night, he called back to his mates, in a long, solitary howl, of the visions he had seen. And yet he ran onward, far, far ahead of the pack.
So did the time come when the Lone Wolf stopped -- to wait for the pack to catch up to him, to tell them of his visions and adventures.
As he saw the pack approach in the low-hanging moonlight, over the distant hills behind him, and heard their baying, his breath quickened, and he loped toward them in joyful homecoming.
But as he approached, the pack fell on him.
And rendered him, devouring his flesh.
Then, in uncaring ignorance of the visions that lay ahead, the pride of wolves ran on.
Thus, the pack cares not whether you run behind or ahead of it -- only that you run apart.


July 20, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

___

The Fog, The Sun
Amid the ruins of a castle on a moor lived an old hermit and his young pupil.
One day the fog lay on the moor like a spent lover, and all was grey.
"See you the lowering fog, boy?" asked the hermit.
"Aye," replied the boy, "I can spy nary a foot beyond our keep, teacher."
Then his teacher asked, "And how is this fog like the lives of men?"
The boy pondered, then replied, "Teacher, I know many a man and woman, 'tis true, who can see no further in front o' their faces than we do now."
"Indeed!" the old man laughed. "But then, young one, what be the Sun that burns away the fog to show our far horizons?"
To this the boy only shook his head.
Gently the old hermit reached out with one long, withered finger, and tapped at the boy's forehead, and the boy felt the hermit's touch as if it were a droplet of flame.
"Here is your Sun, boy. Here is your Sun."
Thus, reason can lead to meaning and purpose -- by burning away the fog that lies ahead.


July 13, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

___

The Dodo, The Crow
In a verdant field surrounding a farm lived a Dodo and a Crow.
One year the farmland was sold. The Dodo and the Crow watched in silence from nearby bushes, while the old farmer glanced about at his past, stared down into his future, then slapped his straw hat against his leg like a horsewhip and walked away.
Soon came a horde of earthmovers crawling with construction workers, who ripped up the crops, trees and wild underbrush -- to build a parking lot and tract homes.
The Dodo ran about in circles. It squawked disconsolately when it saw its nest crushed by a tractor, leaving no underbrush to build anew. That night the cold winds came, and, to put the squawking Dodo out of its misery, a crew worker impulsively bashed in its head with his shovel.
The Crow, too, lost its treetop nest the very next day. As the gnarled old oak fell and was chipped into mulch by workers, the Crow circled, a cruciform specter, in the desolate sky. But, unlike the Dodo, the Crow set out the next day to build a new nest, where he could -- in the very top of the riggings used by the construction workers. With the crops all now laid waste, the Crow consumed the bodies of the shrews and mice uprooted from their nests and crushed under foot or wheel.
So did the Dodo find a new way to die, and the Crow find a new way to live.
Thus, the erasing of one path limns another.


July 4, 2007, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), Copyright © 2007 by Frank H. Burton.

Links

We are pleased to present these links of interest to those wanting to learn more about or volunteer to encourage reason, charity and truly ecumenical fellowship in society:

The Secular Bible Study Meetup Group (Christians/Atheists Reasoning Dialogue Fellowship)
Cirkel van Rede (Dutch Circle of Reason Daughter Site)
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
Unitarian Universalist Association
Baha'ism
Buddhism
Atheists for Human Rights
Religious Tolerance
The Daniel Pearl Foundation (Promotion of Cross-Cultural Understanding)
The Coexist Foundation (Promotion of Inter-Abrahamic Faith Understanding)
Tony Blair Faith Foundation (Promotion of Interfaith Education and Collegiality)
Beliefnet (Commercial Multifaith and Interfaith Web Community and Forums)
Interfaith (Non-Commercial Interfaith News and Dialogue Forum)
United Religions Initiative
The Foundation For A Better Life (Inspiring Positive Values)
The Whitman Institute
Socrates Café
Science Cafés
Starfleet (The International Star Trek Fan Association, Inc.)
The Logic of Surak
World Future Society's Forecasts
Projections: A Futurist at the Movies
The SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - Hat Creek Radio Observatory Project)
The Gutenberg Project (Free Classic Book Downloads)
Wikipedia (Free Web Encyclopedia)
Reporters Without Borders (Defending Press Freedom Worldwide)
Novayagazeta (Russia's Last Free Press)
Snopes (Refuting Rumors and Urban Legends)
Media Matters For America
PR Watch
WATCH (Public Monitoring of the Court Justice System to Increase Safety for Women and Children)
Quackwatch
Chidren's Healthcare is a Legal Duty (CHILD) (Protecting Children From Abusive Religious or Cultural Medical Neglect)
Project Kindle (HIV/AIDS Children's Camps)
KIPP ("Knowledge is Power Program") Schools -- Successful College Prep for Underserved-Community Students
Make It Right Foundation New Orleans (Restoring Homes to Hurricane Katrina Evacuees)
Children's Defense Fund
NotMYkid (Teen Behavioral Health)
Darkness to Light (Confronting Child Sexual Abuse)
Hands On Twin Cities and Hands On Network (USA)
Loaves and Fishes
Hazelden Foundation
Habitat for Humanity
AccountAbility Minnesota (Volunteer Accounting and Tax Assistance)
Girls Circle (Facilitator-Guided Girls' Reasoning Dialogue Groups)
Boys Council (Facilitator-Guided Boys' Reasoning Dialogue Groups)
Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
MAD DADS, Men Against Destruction-Defending Against Drugs and Social-Disorder and Minneapolis MAD DADS (Visible Fatherly Presence in Drug- and Teen Gang- Ravaged Neighborhoods)
Social Venture Partners International (Venture Capital for Philanthropies)
Do Something (Volunteerism Clearinghouse and Local Volunteer Search Site)
Teaching Tolerance
The Southern Poverty Law Center
AmeriCorps
Senior Corps
Books for Africa
The Peace Corps
The Earth Corps (Training and Networking for Global Service)
CARE
UNICEF
Nonviolent Peaceforce
Nechama (Jewish Response To Disaster)
Give Us Wings (Helping Third World Villages Help Themselves)
The Grameen Bank (Bangladeshi Micofinancier) and Grameen Foundation USA (Third World Microfinancier)
The One Acre Fund (Agribusiness Assistance Turning African Subsistence Farmers Into Entrepreneurs)
Nothing But Nets (Donate a $10-Mosquito Net to Save a Person from Death by Malaria)
Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres)
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
Lifestraw (Donating Personal Drinking Water Purifiers to Prevent Cholera & Dysentery)
Free The Slaves (Eliminating Worldwide Slavery and Human Trafficking)
Community of Veterans
Support Your Vet
Hire A Hero (Finding Jobs for Veterans)
The Matthew Shepard Foundation (Replacing Hatred Against Gays with Understanding)
International Atomic Energy Agency
Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI)
World Institute for Nucelar Security (WINS) (Best Practices Forum to Prevent Atomic Theft)
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Middle Eastern College for Reconciliation and Development (Teaching Arab and Israeli Children Civil Engagement)
Scholar Rescue Fund
The African Union
The United Nations
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
The National Institute of Mental Health
The Nature Conservancy
The World Wildlife Fund
Ducks Unlimited (Wetland Conservation)
Greenpeace
Evangelical Climate Initiative
Carbon Capital Fund (Carbon Footprint Calculator and Personal Carbon Offset Purchasing)
GreenDisk, Inc. (Technotrash Recycling)
Recycles.org (Used Computer & Office Equipment Donation to Nonprofits)
Recycle City (Environmental Protection Agency Instructional Website)
General Motors EV1 (First Battery Electric Car)
Toyota Prius Plug-In Conversion (100+ mpg Hybrid+Battery Conversion Kit)
A123 Systems (Plug-In Hybrid Car Lithium-Battery Conversions)
Zenn ("Zero Emmission-No Noise") Short-Haul Electric Car (35 mile range)
General Motors Volt Car ("Extended-Range Electric" Concept Car with 50mpg Gas/E85-Generator Recharging of Lithium Battery Beyond 40 Miles)
Transit for Livable Communities (Bus and Light & Commuter Rail Advocacy)
Windsource (Example Wind Power Subscription)
The Bonobo Conservation Initiative (Preventing Chimp Extinction)

With regret, we have removed the below charitable links due to their recent discriminatory practices in hiring or service. With your help (by petition or withholding donations) we hope to one day welcome these organizations back:

Catholic Charities (retracted policy allowing adoption by same-sex couples)
The Salvation Army (instituted policy denying employment to gays or lesbians)
The Boy Scouts of America (instituted policy denying membership to non-theists and gays)

The Circle of Reason receives no financial incentive from any organization listed among its Links.

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1. Circle Wikilators -- If you are fluent in not only English but another language, volunteer by e-mailing us your translations of our Parable of The Week and Parables archive.

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3. Circle Reason-Monitors -- Much of what passes for public discourse is filled with denials of reality, questionable assumptions (false realities), and "argumentum ad hominem," or emotional insults or appeals. Reason-Monitors will sit by the front row, or post YouTube clips, while literally green-, yellow- or red- flagging such errors, to help keep the ship of state on an even keel.

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In the soil of every belief can be inscribed a common circle -- wherein stand the reasoning.

Local Circles of Reason are neighborhood congregations of communal belief in the power of logical and reasoning thought to transform our world and help humankind attain its next major step toward moral and philosophical maturity.

To find or begin a Local Circle of Reason, Email us your name and your city, state and country of residence.

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The Circle of Reason does not seek to convert its members from their faiths, but encourages its members to reasonably guide their faiths. Local Circles are thus encouraged to be founded in and sponsored by (or between) neighborhood churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and atheist groups, while welcoming members of every belief and creed, so that in reasoning fellowship all may learn how to believe (or disbelieve) without dogmatic aggression, by faith alone -- circumscribing a shared religious- and reason- based morality.

Local Circle meetings are held at times not conflicting with Friday Prayers or Saturday or Sunday Sabbath ceremonies.

For organizational tips on starting a Local Circle, and info on various Circle activities ranging from conversational or charitable fellowship to ecumenical marriage (or civil union or commitment), amicable divorce (eudivortium) and eulogy (eulogium) ceremonies, Request our Circle of Reason PowerPoint Show.

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Online Community

Gather in, speak out, listen up, get down.

Want to seek out new logical life, and new rational civilizations? To clearly go where no one has gone before?

Want to find, recruit, converse with and encourage -- from all walks of life, all biologies, all beliefs, all societies -- those who are your own kinsmen and kinswomen - the reasoning kind?

Want to discuss the role of reason, or its absence, in our "modern" society?

Want to help humankind at long last attain philosophical and moral maturity?

You're looking for one of The Circle of Reason's Online Communities -- or "Virtual Local Circles":

1. Beliefnet Circle of Reason -- Here are kindred souls with many different (or no) beliefs! Join the 158-member-strong and growing B'net Circle of Reason and participate in our most active (and lively!) all-inclusive forum, debating religious, interfaith and secular issues of the day. (BCOR founded April 2008)

2. Facebook Circle of Reason -- Currently our second-largest Virtual Local Circle with 93 members, Facebook members join this Online Community to find reasoning friends from all corners of the planet. (FCOR founded February 2008)

3. The Round Table -- Pull up a chair to The Round Table, COR's own ad-free webforum. (CORRT awaits members in Summer 2009)

Join BCOR, FCOR, or CORRT today...and own our future.


BCOR, FCOR, and CORRT webforums guarantee users' privacy by permitting username avatars and by not disclosing users' login e-mail addresses.

Clarity Circles

Reason, like the sun, burns away the fog that lies ahead.

Want increased clarity about a big decision in your life?

Willing to help another through an important life choice by simply -- and only -- asking questions to help them perceive the realities, assumptions, and emotions that underlie their dilemma?

You're looking for the tradition of communal clear thinking historically begun by the Quakers, and which we continue today -- Clarity Circles:

To begin or join a real-world Clarity Circle, E-mail us your name, city, state and country of residence.

To begin or join an online Clarity Circle as a public, permanently viewable discussion board thread, visit one of our Online Communities.

To begin or join a Clarity Circle as a live group webchat, post the day, time & time zone for your Clarity Circle event at one of our Online Communities, then at the appointed time go to the #claritycircle channel of IRCnet.org's Webchat (accessed by typing claritycircle under the IRCnet chatchannel menu option "Other").