~ The wild mother ass bowed herself in a grassy
knoll by some rocks. The months were fulfilled and
it was her time to bring forth her foal. It wasn't long
and she cast out her sorrow, calving a healthy male.
The young one was in good liking and brought her
much joy, but she knew, most likely, he'd grow up
with corn and go forth under man's rule; never to
return to her.
It caused her grief as she thought upon something
her Granny had always quoted:
"Who has set the wild ass free? Who loosed the bands of
my ancestors? My house is the wilderness. The barren land
is my dwellings. I scorn the multitudes of the city, neither
regard I the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains
are my pasture, and I search after every green thing."
But she now had another besides herself to
think about.
"Am I now willing to serve and abide by the crib?
Could I be bound with man's band in the trench made by a plow?
Would I harrow the valleys after him, subjected to the torture of their
toothed instruments? Will I trust him because his strength is great?;
or would I leave the labor to him?"
The infant foal snuggled up to her and gave suck.
It nearly broke her heart to imagine what the future
held for her foal. "Will he believe in man, that he
will bring home the grain, and gather it into his barn?
Or will he always stay a wild ass?"
She had faith in a great Heavenly Father because of the stories she
had heard years before the herds were disbursed. Granny Ass had
always spoken humbly of a Heavenly One in a far off field who had
given the goodly wings unto the peacock and the feathers unto the
ostrich;
however, the mother wild ass had trouble with understanding
why a great creator
could make such beautiful creatures which left their eggs in the earth,
and warmed them in dust, and then forgot that the hoof may crush them,
or that the wild beast may break them. How could any mother be so
hardened against their young ones, as though they were not hers?
It all seemed so vain.
"But man by far is the worse!", she thought.
"For even an ostrich, whenever she jumps up to run, passes
the swiftest horse with its rider. For I have seen with my own
eyes how some humans removed the landmarks.
They violently took away whole flocks and ate them!
They drove away the ass of the fatherless, and one day
I watched from afar as they even took the widow's ox for
money owed -
Man! The supposed highest creature, who turns the needy
out of the way; leaving the poor of the earth to hide themselves
together! So often they seek to enslave, and destroy, who acting
as wild asses in the desert, they themselves go forth to their work;
rising between times to prey! To stalk, kill and steal!
The wilderness yields food for man and their children... but so
often times, it is at the expense of their own asses!"
~ She was of course referring to the time of a great famine in
Samaria: and how it was besieged until an ass's head was
sold for 80 pieces of silver!
Continuing in her thoughts, she said to herself:
"It is because of man's sins that they are required to take
the firstling of an ass redeemed with a lamb for a burnt
sacrifice upon a horrible stone! None could appear before
the great creator empty, so they sought after our asses!
They pounced upon my kin while they were giving birth or
nursing their young and many of their necks were broken! -
Man!; the so-called highest of beings who reaps selfishly his
own corn in the field and who gathers the vintage of the wicked!
They overlook the poor whom have no lodging, and whom are
without proper coats in the cold. They are wet with the showers
of the clouds, and embrace the alleys and bypasses for want of a
shelter. They are vain creatures without respect for life!
They leave their birth ones in trash heaps and seek to cease
their unborn from their wombs! -
Man! Whom their masses are as the ostrich, deprived of wisdom,
neither have they understanding! They riot and burn to make their
voices heard! They rage with murder in the streets, simply because
they are crowded! They drink fermented water and sour juice of the
vine so they may walk sideways with blured vision, only to vomit
it back up! Both females and males stand on sidewalks to spread
diseases for money so they may pay medical bills!
They rid the earth of it's trees to replace the soil with concrete,
so they may have commerce to destroy more forests?
And worst of all, they batter to death their mates who are carrying
their own unborn sons and daughters!", she thought.
~ These thoughts quickly withdrew, along with her anger,
as she suddenly remembered her youthful years when
she had lifted herself up on high to scorn a passing horse
and it's rider.
"I shouldn't worry. We are actually wiser than man!
We are next in line to the horse. And Lord, how you've
given the horse strength! You've clothed his neck with
thunder and with a quivering mane! Is he afraid as a
grasshopper? His majestic snorting is something to hear!
The glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paws in the valley,
and rejoices in his strength: When he goes to war, he is
unafraid and does not run away though the arrows, shields,
and flashing spears rattle against him! -
Fiercely he paws the ground and rushes forward
into battle when the trumpet blows. At the sound of
the bugle he shouts, 'Aha!' He smells the battle when
it's far away and rejoices at the shouts and the roar
of the captain's commands. Even hawks fly by the
wisdom of the Great One, but what can be said about man? -
I am adapted to the wilderness. I sniff at the wind at my
pleasure; and when I set my mind to be still who can
turn me away?"
The present reality that she was no longer alone
quickly came into proper focus.
She sighed and said to herself,
"Soon they will find me with foal,
and we shall be enslaved!"
She turned to her offspring who yet could not understand
and whispered -more so as an affirmation to herself-
"They can force their burdens upon us, but they will not
withhold your foot from being shod dear one, and your throat
from thirst: Don't fear my foal; Maybe... there is still hope for all
mankind and for YOU! For it is written;
'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout,
O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee:
he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass,
and upon a colt the foal of an ass.' (*)
We asses have a place in history",
she softly whispered.
And as she stood, still chewing on a cud of grass, she smiled, thinking,
'I am glad I am not human! I am a wild ass and proud of it!' " ~
Her thoughts quickly churned an internal desire to speak.
"If I could speak one message to mankind,
what would I say?", she wondered.
Finally her answer came:
"Mankind, please keep in mind my kind reminder;
to any whom might take pride in being a human wild
ass: KNOW that the hunter will not weary himself.
You will find yourself caught and enslaved through your
own weaknesses. For within a wild ass's month of calving,
when we are at our weakest, is the time we are sought
out and captured! - Remember and honor He who has
sent out the wild ass free, or who has loosed the bands
of the wild ass."
~ The young foal grew for a time in the wilderness with it's
mother, until the day soon came when both were captured
and sold together in the market place near Jerusalem, not far
from Bethphage and Bethany, close to the mount of Olives.
The young colt had been blessed. It had never been
mistreated or ridden, nor had ever a man even sat upon it's back.
One day the two were tied by a doorway in their day place,
where two intersections met. The mother ass and her colt were
suddenly surprised when two strange men loosed their ropes
and began leading them away!
Their owners were heard saying, "What do ye, loosing the colt?"
So the two men answered what Jesus had told them to say, and then
their owners agreed.
So the colt was brought to Jesus, and the disciples threw their cloaks
across its back for him to ride on. Then many in the crowd spread out
their coats along the road before him, while others threw down leafy
branches from the fields. The colt was in the center of the procession
with crowds ahead and behind, and all of them shouting,
"Hail to the King!" "Praise God for him who comes in the name of
the Lord!"... "Praise God for the return of our father David's kingdom... "
"Hail to the King of the universe!" (**)
And the mother ass smiled, knowing instinctively there was something
virtuous and VERY different about this man and she wondered who He was?
And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?
And the multitude said, "This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee!"
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the
temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
And said unto them,
"It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer;
but ye have made it a den of thieves".
And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.
And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did,
and the children crying in the temple, and saying,
"Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased,
And said unto him, "Hearest thou what these say?"
And Jesus saith unto them,
"Yea; have ye never read, 'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
thou hast perfected
praise'? "
(***)
As the mother ass took all this in, grinning, suddenly things didn't seem so vain.
"Heehaw! There is hope for all mankind
after all!", she thought.
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