Perhaps you have heard the parable of the Chinese farmer. I’ve been picturing that succession of alternating events — seemingly good / seemingly bad / wouldntcha know!? / w o u l d n ‘ t y o u k n o w ? — continuing right up to now.

In case you haven’t heard it, then just very briefly, it goes like this:

There was a poor farmer with only son and only one horse to help them. There is a domino effect in the story with one thing leading to another —> and another —> and on and on. And whatever happens either looks “good” or “bad” but the father replies with something like, “Maybe, maybe not.” And whatever you thought was true (good or bad) the next thing that happens flips your prior judgment.

The villagers around them are always lamenting or celebrating, but the father exercises pause. Or maybe its humility. It could also be skepticism, honestly. You just don’t know how things will play out.

One day, the horse gets out and runs off, The neighbors: “Oh, you unfortunate man!” The father: “Maybe, maybe not.”

but returns with several mares behind, N: “What good fortune you have!” F: “Maybe, maybe not.”

one of whom rears up and throws the only son, N: “Oh..” F: “Maybe…”

breaking his leg and making him unfit to be marched off to war at the emperor’s command. What? Maybe.

It is a fun exercise to think of what happens next and to play within the structure. And it is also instructive for life, since —

• I’ve had a tax issue with the IRS going on for a couple of years, and every time there is a step, the next step has stairs leading to it,
• and trouble with big companies, all of which want to shirk responsibility for a car gone wrong. And every time I get a reposnse, it is another version of nose-goes,
• and all my brothers are trying to get well, but there seems to all be someone taking steps backwards when others are moving on up.

(Things) carry and duplicate, breaking in life, like a sourdough mama with kids. I’ve wondered: What if the son, not having gone off to war — perhaps a war in which many of the young men died, went a few different ways at once? What if he lived and grew up and got married, W M but his wife became very ill, o m but got better and then she got pregnant, wm but the baby would struggle to thrive? om

Or what if the young man, unable to go to war, feels rejected and insufficient and then sinks into a deep depression? Or gets bored and so chooses to study music and becomes a great composer? Or becomes somber, hearing of all of his compatriots who died and drowns his sorrows until he’s an addict? Or uses that sorrow in humility and becomes a monk whose life is service?

What if the monk began an order that produced many holy ones? Those holy ones heading into places of desperation, encouraging the suffering, and thereby helping those hurting people to heal and to live productive lives of their own. Or perhaps helping the dying to be at ease.

And what of the families losing those sons to the monastic life? The empty seat at the table, the hole in celebrations. the lack of voice and laughter ever again forever.

Either way in those homes where the missing son was preceded by —> the farmer’s —> fortunate —> son?

Will that quiet house grow brighter or dimmer? Will his parents become closer together? Further apart? Maybe, maybe not.