When I was serving as the Dean of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Burlington, Vermont I started a weekly email titled ESpirit. This email went out to all members of the Cathedral and anyone else who requested it. This was not the weekly news (ENews) of activities happening at the Cathedral. Instead, it was a short meditation, a reflection, something that I hoped would feed one’s spirit.
I often wrote these reflections myself, but I also invited others to write and to share with the Cathedral community. When I made the decision to retire I did not want to see the ESpirit fade away so asked several parishioners there to keep it going, which they did beautifully. The ESpirit has had several lives with different writers but I am happy to report it is still going. I am also very blessed to still receive the ESpirit in my own email inbox. And it does continue to feed my spirit.
One of the gifted writers who keeps the ESpirit going is Katherine Maynard. She is a published poet and writes beautifully. Her ESpirit this week touched me deeply.
In this reflection she shares a story about her son when he was a little boy:
…kids don’t just pose thorny questions. Often they identify new solutions. For example, one day I was reading the story of the Three Little Pigs. Our son was four. We got to the part where the pigs are huddled in their brick house, the wolf is on the roof, and the pigs have put a big kettle of boiling water on the fire.
My son piped up right there. Mom, they should cook some noodles for the wolf! If they feed him, he won’t be hungry anymore.
He was exactly right. What a different approach to the problem than destroying the wolf! Befriend him instead. Recognize the wolf’s need and work to meet it, for all their sake. Our son saw possibilities with eyes of compassion, not fear, possibilities that had never occurred to me, though I’d heard that story countless times.
So often we act or respond out of fear instead of compassion. We hurry to resolve an issue rather than take the time to ponder what all the possibilities might be. What a lovely thing that this wise little boy realized the wolf was hungry and rather than kill the wolf what they really needed to do was feed the wolf.
And noodles? Oh my. Our children when they were young and now our grandchildren love noodles. It is the go-to hunger solution. Noodles were the perfect solution—to feed the wolf, to save the pigs, to get to happily ever after without violence and destruction. Noodles.
I have heard and read the story of those Three Little Pigs and the big, bad wolf hundreds of times, but never once did I think to propose a different ending to this story. Feed the wolf. Cook the wolf some noodles. Solve the problem. Maybe he wasn’t really so big and bad but simply hungry.
My hope is that I will look for the noodles solution when I face problems. I will act with compassion instead of fear. I will try to understand instead of rushing to resolve. I will step away from labels such as “big” or “bad” and look for what is the deeper truth.
Perhaps there are times when we think the only solution is to kill the wolf, but there may be another way. Maybe the wolf is just hungry and the solution is to cook some noodles to feed the wolf. Noodles. The answer might be noodles.
If you would like to read Kate Maynard’s full ESpirit from October 4th (and I hope you will) you can get there with this link: https://myemail.constantcontact.com/ESpirit.html?soid=1109047471802&aid=csVIE-13rJk
Noodles are comforting!
When I first read Kate's story I was also struck by her sons comments. How refreshing he was and how insightful at 4 years old. He could teach us all a lot with his wisdom. I too love noodles any way and shape any form.