Target Audience

Eka just lent me The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, so I hastened to finish my Tuesdays with Morrie so I could get started on it. =D

Just got to Chapter One, and I like it so far. It's the philosophical type like The Little Prince or Dune, which are fictions with quoteworthy* moral messages delivered as the story progresses. (Thanks Eka, and keep them coming! ^_^)

The below story, which particularly impressed me, is from the Preface.

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Our Lady, with the Baby Jesus in her arms, decided to come down to Earth and visit a monastery. The monks proudly joined in a long queue, and each of them came before the Virgin to render their homage. One declaimed beautiful poetry, another showed his illuminated paintings of biblical subjects, a third repeated the names of all the Saints. And so on, one monk after another, praising Our Lady and the Baby Jesus.

The last monk of all there was the humblest in the whole monastery, who had never studied the learned books of the time. His parents were simple people, who worked in an old travelling circus, and all they had taught him was to throw balls into the air and juggle with them.

When it was his turn, the other members of the order wanted to bring the homage to a conclusion, since the old juggler would have nothing important to say, and might lower the image of the monastery. But in the bottom of his heart, he also felt a burning need to give something of himself to Jesus and the Virgin.

Ashamed, conscious of the disapproving looks of his brothers, he took a few oranges from his bag, and started to juggle them in the air, saying that juggling was all he knew how to do.

It was at that moment that the Baby Jesus, sitting on Our Lady's lap, smiled and started to clap his hands. And the Virgin reached out her arms, inviting him to hold the baby.

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The dark horse thing is rather cliched, but I'm touched by the content. When we give, how much is for the other person and how much is for our ego? Ah, I've been fighting this for a long time. =P


* Reminded me of Gurney Halleck and his love of quotations and "flowery phrases". My kindred spirit, as Denny pointed out, which made him my favourite character. =D