Parable Wrapped Up in an Allegory

Parable:  A short, simple story from which a moral lesson may be drawn: it is usually an allegory.


Allegory:  A story in which people, things, and happenings have another meaning, as in a fable or parable: allegories are used for teaching or explaining.


I grew up in a religious home.  We attended a church that had a fairly large book that told you what to do and what not to do, overly emphasizing the what not to do part, in my opinion.  Whenever I get pissy about the length of our basic recovery text, I grab hold of the big mother from my churchey past. That book is just getting revved up after 164 pages.  The Program has pretty much flogged the instructions to death by then.


Anyway, there were a lot of nice parables in the religious book that I've remembered, much to my chagrin.  Don't forget that I never, ever do what anyone tells me to do but I have a decent track record of emulating the actions of people I admire.  One parable that really stuck in my mind told the tale of a guy who was attending the wedding of a friend.  The custom was for each guest to bring a portion of wine.  The host would add everyone's contribution to a large central container -- a goat-skin, probably -- and this would serve to fuel the day's hilarity.  The guest thought about this for a while.  He wanted to get out of the obligation to drain some of his own precious stock.  He wanted to drink but he didn't want to contribute, and he wanted everyone else to think he had chipped in.  He probably brought a plus size calf-skin -- if he was going to fake it he might as well Go Big.


"I'm going to bring a sheepskin of water," he thought.  "I'll add it when no one's looking.  There's going to be so much wine in the main cow-skin that no one will be the wiser."


When the host opened the festivities he cracked open the pigskin and filled a goblet.  Instead of wine, he got a cup of nice, cold water.  Each one of his guests had thought the same selfish thought and slipped in one -- just one -- hog-skin of water.  It was all water.  Everyone had brought water.


I thought of this parable while I was making the 3rd of 18 illegal driving moves the day before en route to the birthday party.  It was a nice party.  It wasn't huge but it wasn't small.  It wasn't fancy but it wasn't crappy.  It was just right.  It was some nice people in a nice house hanging out together.  It wasn't a big whoop-te-do.  It was just nice.  Some people weren't able to attend because of work or family obligations and that's OK -- once we sober up we have responsibilities that need to be kept.  But I'm sure a few people besides SuperK and I didn't want to go, either, and some of them didn't go.


I think sometimes at a meeting I'm just an ass in a seat.  I don't talk and I'm not profound when I do.  I don't save a newcomer or comfort the disconsolate.  I fill a seat.  I'm part of the background, the structure.  I have a history of trying to attend meetings when I travel and every now and then I show up some place where a meeting is scheduled but no one is there.  I figure the meeting got canceled for some reason or that I was given bad directions, but I wonder how often I had chosen a small meeting that no one had bothered to get off the couch and attend.  I'm OK with this now that I've been sober for a while but when I was newer there were times that I didn't get to attend a meeting I really needed to be at.


The birthday girl posted a note saying that it was the best birthday party she had ever attended. I didn't think it was an out-of-the-ordinary party.  It was nice but unspectacular in terms of food and drink and all of the superficial stuff that no one cares about.  It was the people that made it special.  It was the fact that a bunch of folks said: "This woman is important to me and I'm going to show her what I mean."  I'm sure some of the attendees had other obligations that they wanted to fulfill, but they went to the party anyway.


I can complicate anything.