Accept him
As he is.
So song the
Dove.
We
are often too critical of each others who are different from ourselves, and we
try to change them – instead of accepting them as they are. Monkey and Python
were intolerant of each other, and this had disastrous effects . . . by Taban
Lo liyong
Accept him
As he is.
So song the
Dove.
Monkey heard that while he was going to visit
Python that Christmas day. When he arrived, Python called aloud to his mother
like this:
“Mummy, Mummy, bring some food. My
friend Monkey has arrived.”
Monkey was tired and hungry. “I am so
lucky,” he thought, “I will eat to death.” He rushed to the floor where the
well-cooked meal was placed.
“Monkey,” said Python, “go and wash your
hands. Nobody eats with dirty hands.”
He went, washed his hands, and hurried
to where the food was.
“Do you called those hands washed?” was
what Python said. “Have some sense. Those hands are black and dirty. Use soap
and warm water.”
Monkey went and did so. He retuned with
clean hands, palm out.
“Now, Monkey, where were you raised? How
can you come to table so dirty, so smelly, so black? Get that blackness off
your hands.”
Monkey took a butcher knife, skinned
away the black skin on his palms. The palms turned red, red with blood. Tears
dropped from his eyes as blood dropped from his hands.
He was still hungry. He came to eat.
“How can you be so uncultured? So
unintelligent? Don’t touch my food with your blood. I am no cannibal.” Those were Python’s words.
Monkey started for home. The Dove sings:
Accept him,
As he is.
Another Christmas day came. Python was
going to visit Monkey.
Accept him,
As he is.
Accept him,
As he is.
He heard the Dove sing.
“Countryman,” said Monkey to Python,
“you are most welcome.”
Python spread his twenty-foot length on
the floor, filling almost every space.
“Mama Monkey,” her son called, “bring in
the feast.” Food was brought and placed on the floor. Monkey sat on his
haunches, and laid his hands on his knees.
“Now, Python, my countryman,” said
Monkey, “get seated.”
Python coiled himself into a heap like tyres of different sizes.
“Mistah, we don’t call that sitting’’
said monkey. “Now, get seated like other folks. See what I mean?”
Python uncoiled himself. He pushed the greater part of his twenty feet
outside the hut. His head was near the pot of food.
“I didn’t tell you to lie on your belly.
You must learn to sit, and to sit properly inside a house.” Monkey said like
that.
Python assemble all of his himself inside the hut. He started to sit, on
his tail. His head went up, up, till it piece through the roof. Monkey ate the
food. He took a cutlass and chopped of seven feet from the Python tail. Python
jerked up the bulk of his squirming length through the grass roof.
They both heard
the Dove singing:
Accept him
As he is.
Accept him,
As he is.
Everyday the
Dove sings:
Accept them, as
they are.
Accept them, as
they are.
as they are
as they are
Within us are
areas we all would love to change in our lives. Change yourself then you may be
able to change the world.
@WPPJr
Editor/Publisher
Editor/Publisher
