“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I guess that you were asked that question as a child. Perhaps multiple times. It’s the question I asked the children in fifteen Primary school classes last Friday. Actually it was the question the Mole asked the Boy in the story I was telling them.
We had plenty of policemen, nurses, footballers and gymnasts, firefighters, teachers, doctors and vets. A binman and a gardener too. And then I told them the Boy’s answer: “I want to be kind.”
“Do you want to be kind?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s the first person to be kind to?”
Me mam, me friends, the teacher?
“How about yourself? If you can be kind to yourself, perhaps that will help you to be kind to others. When you get things wrong, what kind things could you say to yourself?”
And so we journeyed on. The Boy and the Mole meet a fox caught in a snare and though he’s not very friendly, the Mole bites through the snare and releases him. Standing on a stone beside the river, the Mole slips in and the Fox, having learned kindness, rescues him.
Together they meet the Horse, large but gentle. They continue their journey to find ‘home’, on his back. When the Boy falls off, the horse rescues him.
“I realise why we are here,” whispered the Boy.
“For cake?” asked the Mole – the Mole loves cake!. “To love.” said the Boy. “And to be loved.” said the Horse.
Not very different from Jesus’ commandment to us.
Chris Dawson
(The story is: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy – Penguin Books)