Elephant Finds His Way Back Home
There once was a tiny elephant named Herbert who never quite measured up to his peers. For most of his life he was deeply burdened by this fact, thus he made it his lifelong mission to not only measure up to them, but to eventually surpass them as well. He started upping his diet and lifting bales of hay with his trunk whenever he got the chance. There was a delightful ecstasy to watching a gigantic bale of hay soar through the bright blue African sky. This wasn’t enough for him, though, because he knew the biggest elephant in the herd, Bubba, could toss a bale that was five times the weight of Herbert’s heaviest bale.
He didn’t give up, though, oh no. Herbie kept plodding away, getting bigger and stronger by the minute. Finally there came a day in which he could toss a whole tree trunk through the air!! “Wow,” thought Herbert, “now I’m sure I’ve gotta be the strongest elephant in town!!” He raced over to all the other elephants and immediately started chattering away about his latest accomplishment. “Oh boy, oh boy, did you guys see that?! I threw that tree trunk all the way across the river!” They all started laughing and jeering at him, saying that they could all throw tree trunks three times that size and twice the distance.
Hanging his head low with his tail hanging listlessly between his legs, Herbie sauntered off into the sunset. “Why can’t I be as strong and powerful as everyone else?? I try so hard, but it gets me nowhere.” Just as he was about to see no point in continuing to live his dreadful existence, he saw a rainbow in the distance. Coupled with the magnificent sunset that he just now noticed, he felt the air fill his lungs in one quick gasp.
The birds singing in the trees, the tigers playing good-naturedly in the distance, and the warm late August wind made his baby soft ears gently flap not unlike the way the leaves always moved. “Why haven’t I noticed how perfect everything is, just the way it is?” In that moment he realized the supreme grace and beauty that embodied him and everyone and everything around him. As he rejoined the other elephants he never again felt the urge to compete. The only urge he ever felt was to feel the gentle wind caress .
God Bless You
Fr Eugene Lobo SJ
