Oranges

At the Sufi House last night, Effendi said something like this:

"We do not go to bed with a full stomach and let our neighbor go to bed hungry. We do not keep the biggest piece of cake for ourselves. We do not serve ourselves first."

This made me remember when my daughter was about five and was faced with a dilemma. I told the story last night. I'm telling it better now.

My daughter and her good girlfriend Jill came in from playing outside. Naturally, they wanted something to eat. There were two oranges in a wooden bowl on our kitchen table. One orange was a huge navel orange. The other was a normal-sized orange, small in comparison to the big navel orange.

My daughter Lauren picked up the two oranges in her hands.  You could see the gears of her mind working. She was debating with herself which orange to give Jill and which orange to keep for herself. She knew it was right to give Jill the bigger orange. She knew it.

When Lauren finally made her decision, she plopped the smaller orange into Jill's hand and happily took the bigger one for herself.

Both girls peeled their oranges. It turned out that the peel on Lauren's navel orange was so thick and the peel on Jill's orange was so thin that, despite initial appearances, Jill wound up with the bigger orange and Lauren with the smaller one. A magician's trick had been performed.

Puzzled, Lauren said out loud, "But I got the little one."

Jill, juice dripping down her chin, had a smile of glee on her face.

It's like God wanted Lauren to learn a lesson, and he over-rode her initial choice. God made sure Lauren did the right thing despite herself.

And this story does have a fairy-tale ending, for, forevermore, Lauren has consistently and truly been one of the most generous people in the world.