From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor's rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own. Carl Schurz

Friday, September 30, 2011

"The weight of nothing"

"The weight of nothing"

"Tell me the weight of a snowflake", a coal-mouse asked a wild dove.
"Nothing more than nothing", was the answer.
"In that case, I must tell you a marvellous story" the coal-mouse said. "I sat on the branch of a fir tree, close to its trunk, when it began to snow, not heavily, not in a raging blizzard, no, just like in a dream, without any violence. Since I didn't have anything else to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch - nothing more than nothing, as you say - the branch broke off". Having said that, the coal-mouse flew away.
The dove, since Noah's time an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while, and finally said to herself "perhaps there is only one person's voice lacking for peace and justice to come about in the world".

- from The Never Ending by Grahame Russell

4 comments:

  1. hi Kev...what a lovely story. And what a gentle and very Candian way to say enough is enough. That time is coming and it will happen...

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  2. Hi Simon I thought about doing more with it but felt it was powerful enough on it's own. This story while indeed lovely truly speaks to a growing frustration of mine and that is the defeatism one encounters so much today.

    "I am only one person,what can I do"

    Well as this story shows, together we are much too powerful a force to stop

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  3. Canada's lucky number is 3,741,953

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  4. Grand merci, Kevin.

    It can be understood in many ways, some negative (the straw that broke the camel's back) or as the dove saw it, the last minuscule contribution that tips the balance in favour of a collective movement for peace, or justice or ...

    Very inspiring.

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