Blessed are the pure in heart

Ian was asking me about the intentions of the little red hen, in the famous children's story of the same name.

He was puzzled, as he expressed in his own words, as to why the little red hen would ask the non-cooperative animals around her who would like to eat the bread, generated entirely by her own efforts, when in fact she had no intention whatsoever of sharing that bread with all the animal-neighbors who had declined to help her every step of the way, in growing and harvesting and grinding wheat, and using it to make the bread. Ian sincerely didn't understand why she would say "Who will help me eat the bread?" only to say "No, no, no" when the otherwise-non-voluntarist neighbors started volunteering to eat the bread which they had no part in making.

I said, "I think she was just trying to rub it in."

Ian asked, with a purity of soul far beyond the fallen state of adult humanity:

"But why? Why was she torturing them?"

(January 10, 2010)