THE holidays gave me a chance to read. On a flight from Sydney to Dallas-Fort Worth you can just about finish War and Peace.
I discovered The Woodcutter’s Wisdom, Max Lucado’s translation of a Brazilian folk tale.
Its theme is “Tenha paciência”, “Just is patient”.
This resonates in crowded airports and on long flights.
The woodcutter, an old man in a tiny village, owned a magnificent white stallion.
Though poor, he refused to sell the horse, even to the King. “How can you sell family?” he would say.
One morning the horse was gone. The villagers scoffed: “You could have sold to the King. You have been cursed.”
The old man replied: “Don’t speak too soon.
Say only the horse is not in the stable; that is all we know.
Can you judge whether this is a curse or a blessing?”
Later the horse returned bringing 12 others from the forest. “You have been blessed!” the elated villagers said.
Again the old man cautioned: “Say only the horses have returned. This is but a fragment, not the whole picture.”
The pattern of the story continues.
Working the new horses, the old man’s only son breaks both legs. Then war is declared.
Because of his injury the son is the only young man not conscripted.
The villagers bounce between “blessing” and “curse” like a tennis ball at the Australian Open.
The woodcutter steadfastly refuses to rush to judgment, saying: “Life comes in fragments. It can be understood only when the full story is revealed.”
Lucado points out the connection with the wisdom of another woodcutter, from Nazareth, who said: “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”
Or, put in terms with which every Nightline listener would be familiar, “one day at a time”.