Fortune’s Smile— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria VA
Give fools their gold, and knaves their power;
Let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall;
Who sows a field, or trains a flower,
Or plants a tree, is more than all.
For he who blesses most is blest;
And God and man shall own his worth
Who toils to leave as his bequest
An added beauty to the earth.
— John Greenleaf Whittier, from A Song of Harvest
As one gets older, worries pop up about what becomes of those things we have accumulated once we are no more. They might have meaning or value for us but mean little, if anything, to others. Will they continue to have the same meaning and value once they are left behind?
Are they a legacy or a burden? A gift or garbage?
The thought made me think of the old Aesop’s Fable of the Old Man and the Three Young Men. It’s a parable that is present in similar forms in the stories of many cultures, one that points out that when we seed the future with flowers and trees, we do it as much for the future that exists without us as we do for ourselves in the near future.
It’s something to keep in mind. It’s never too late to work on that legacy.
Here’s the Aesop version of the tale followed by Pass It On from Bob Marley & The Wailers. Good stuff…
AS AN OLD MAN was planting a tree, three young men came along and began to make sport of him, saying: “It shows your foolishness to be planting a tree at your age. The tree cannot bear fruit for many years, while you must very soon die. What is the use of your wasting your time in providing pleasure to others to share long after you are dead?”
The old man stopped in his labor and replied: Others before me provided for my happiness, and it is my duty to provide for those who shall come after me. As for life, who is sure of it for a day? You may all die before me.
The old man’s words came true; one of the young men went on a voyage at sea and was drowned, another went to war and was shot, and the third fell from a tree and broke his neck.
Moral:
We should not think wholly of ourselves, and we should remember that life is uncertain.
Redtree Times 
Leave a comment