The Coal Mouse and the Dove

A fable is a short story that teaches a moral lesson, often employing animals or fictional characters.  Aesop is credited with writing a collection of famous fables, including The Hare and the Tortoise.

I have a favorite fable that’s been around for several years.  I’m not sure of the author, but it appears to be Kurt Kauter, New Fables – Thus Spoke The Carabou.[1]

“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a coal mouse[2] asked a wild dove.

“Nothing more than nothing,” was the answer.

“In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story,” the coal mouse said.

“I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow – not heavily, not in a raging blizzard – no, just like in a dream, without a wound and without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,742,952. When the 3,742,953rd 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 to come to the world.”

The moral of the story, of course, is that I could be that final snowflake that causes the branch to break off.  I could be the tipping point to bring peace and justice to the world.  It could be me!

But I like to think there is a deeper moral here.  I could be one of the first 3,742,952 snowflakes that just landed on the brand and sat there.  No apparent effect whatsoever.  But without those first millions of flake, we would never reach the tipping point.

So the real heroes are not necessarily the ones you notice.  They are the ones who do the right thing, just because it is the right thing even though no one notices and there are no apparent results.  That is courage.  That is fortitude.  That is persistence.

And, apparently, that is lacking in the world right now.  Today, let’s do something to change that. 

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[1] See:  https://storiesforpreaching.com/category/sermonillustrations/peace/

[2] The coal mouse is a small bird of the titmouse family.  See more here.