THE SECRET.
When children are travelling from the special place to this world where most grow up to be big people who have children of their own, they bring with them a special box. This is why their mothers say that it hurts when they are born. Inside the box are two secrets: Love and kindness but there’s another little something hiding in there, too. This is the recipe for justice whose ingredients are love and kindness which is why every child who feels that something is wrong will say:
“It’s not fair”! Grown-ups will tell them that the world is not fair and sometimes they use the word: “life” instead.
I know I must have owned this box once but I read somewhere that an angel pressed their finger over the little dent in my top lip and covered my mouth as an angel does to every child. This little dent is called the philtrum. A child won’t tell what’s in the box or where they keep it but then another box is offered to them sometime in their teens and each grown-up who has ever lived knows they will get one. They tell them it’s full of good things such as staying out late; being able to drive a car; not have people to tell you when to go to bed or what to eat and to be able to decide to live where they want and go on holiday where they want and they make it seem so lovely but this box is heavy to carry because there are other things in that bigger box called “cares”. These haven’t been doled out equally and some have been given to small and medium-sized children who look sad then.
The excitement
The excitement of owning this bigger box often makes children forget to hold onto the little box containing love and kindness. When this happens a goblin wearing a red hat steals the box because the children haven’t locked it because they are told to share the contents. “Hatred” as the children call the goblin in the red hat puts pins, needles and thorns picked from beautiful roses into the box but throws the flowers away. The little box smells nasty as well once this happens because the milk of human kindness that the children had made when they were so, so small and wise turns sour as the goblin put it in the sun until it was then horrible and poured the contents of it into the bigger box which made the big box which the teenagers have now got all the more horrible and heavy.
I have been trying to find this little box everywhere I have gone. Some nice grown-ups still retain the things from the little box. It is still possible to do that. They have to hang onto it really tightly when they go through the time when boys grow beards and get deep voices and when girls look just like their mummies do because then, a huge hurricane blows ass the goblin tries to take the box from them if they haven’t become excited enough at the thought of the big bright box to absent-mindedly put it down for the goblin to steal.
Joyce the choice bringer
Joyce the choice bringer tells each child they have two choices – One is to become adult and take love and kindness with them and not let go of the little box which each child gets when born or even before when they are travelling and the other choice is to smile and be nice to the goblin in the red hat and follow him. That is most unwise.
If you knew how old I am now you would say: “That’s very old indeed” although I am not as old as a tree or an ancient monument. However, I now know that it’s just as I have always thought. The secret of the little box is in the heart and soul of every living child everywhere children exist. It doesn’t matter whether they speak English or are Muslim children or whether they are Jewish children and whether they are Christian children or what colour they are. Faith and hope are the two big wooden spoons that they are given but they start off as little ones and they have them to stir the little box containing love and kindness when they make the recipe of justice. Here’s the thing though: When they stir regularly and water the things inside with tears at others’ suffering and give the contents warmth from their sunshine smiles the box can grow even bigger than the one carried by the goblin in the red hat. Whoever looks after or meets the children in the world has to remind them and teach them how to use the spoons of hope and faith which often go together but even people who just have hope can stir, too and maybe that will bring them faith. Then the goblin shrinks and gets scared as he gets smaller.
One day, everyone has to travel onwards.
One day, everyone has to travel onwards. This is the last secret for until we do we can only hope we will go to somewhere lovely and that’s where hope and faith come in because by then we should have the answers. For now, all we can do is to stir the contents of the little box, provided we hung onto it when the hurricane the goblin sent came to try to take it or if we were not dazzled by the thought of the big bright box containing all the tempting adult things. We have to never stop sharing our love and kindness with those we meet and even those we may not know and will never know and then the spinning ball we call the world which is not exactly round will be a better, nicer place. I think the story is correct for I have never known a child yet (and I have known lots of them) who doesn’t own a little box containing love and kindness and who does not long for justice. That’s why every child who has ever lived, will ever live will always cry out in a myriad of languages:
“It’s not fair”.
No, at the moment it isn’t but one day it may be and at least if we don’t follow the goblin in the red hat, don’t drop the box with the secret of love and kindness in it, share its contents with everyone everywhere and remember to do this as often as we can, the world will become a little fairer so the longed-for happiness that grown-ups strive for may visit us and make the sun come out and dry up all our tears.