Donkey thinking

There’s a story about a donkey that’s been going around the Internet for quite a while. No doubt some dude knows where it comes from and it was probably in a parchment written by Norman Vincent Peale in 1642 in a monastery in Northern Poland, or something like that.

I first heard it years ago, but its a good one to draw out the idea of just getting on with life, no matter what happens to you.

It goes like this:

One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.

Finally he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw. As every shovel of dirt hit his back, the donkey did something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed, as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off.

The moral of the story of course is to push on through, no matter what life throws at you. The sequel to this one is that the donkey later came back with his mates and sorted out the farmer and his mates with a hiding, therefore giving rise to the second moral of the story “When you try to cover your ass, it will always come back to get you.”

Anyway enough of that. I’ve got a theory. It goes like this:

We all have a cross to carry. It’s a different shape for each of us, but it’s the same weight for everyone.

This is what I mean:

In life some of us get lucky and live in a country like New Zealand with good weather. Others get the Sahara - darn. Then some of us get the silver-spoon upbringing and lack for nothing. Others have to live on a rubbish dump in the Philippines or the slums of India - double darn. Some of us get born with buck-teeth, a hunch-back or big ears, and others emerge from the womb radiating beauty and the sun shining out of their - well you get the idea.

Now when you dig deeper into the human character and how we respond to life, it seems to me that we’re all equal, and our circumstances may influence the shape of the cross we carry, but not the weight. Not many would choose the lot of Helen Keller, but wow - what a richness of mind, heart and soul she had! Then I’ve noticed that many times the poorer people are actually happier than the rich dudes. And the beautiful ones age and lose their beauty, then crumble as they do, whereas people who never relied on their looks often grow in confidence as they age. And those poor dudes in the desert actually manage to eat, procreate and live to a ripe old age (how DO they do it?) whereas those in a more “healthy” environment often get fat and die off with diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

The more I see of the challenges we all face - the silver-spooner’s struggle to understand and communicate with the rest of the world; the rich dude’s struggle to build and keep friendship with people that he or she can trust; the struggle that the little goodey-goodey-two-shoes who has been loved to bits as a child has to recognize that there is actually evil in the world; the struggle that molested, abused, unwanted children have to understand that there is a God that really loves them - the more I see that while we all have different issues to come to terms with, we all (without exception) have issues.

My theory also seems to match with teaching from the Good Book. The idea that we are all equal before God seems to be quite a biblical principle:

Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all.
Proverbs 22:2

That most likely means then that we’ve all got the same opportunities, same issues, same accountability, regardless of our circumstances.

This donkey thinking - to get up, dust off and get on with life - is definitely the VICTUS IN AMBITUS way.