Parable of the Promise
By Lowell Uda
Text Copyright Lowell Uda 2012
Table of Contents
Parable of the Promise
Brief Bio of the Author
Where to Find Lowell Uda online
Parable of the Promise
Long ago in a forest far away, there lived a childless couple who loved the world that God had created. Known as the Man of the Forest, the husband worked diligently to keep the sun on the forest floor and the beetles out of the trees and the shrubs along the creeks healthy. Called the Woman of the Forest, the wife mended as best she could all the animals big and small.
God was happy with this couple, with the work they did to preserve God’s creation, but God knew the couple bore a certain sadness in their marriage. They wanted children, and so far had none. So God made them a promise. “Some day you will care not only for the trees, waterways and creatures of the forest,” God said, “but also for your own children.”
The couple was extremely happy with God’s promise and every day, husband and wife got up and greeted each other with the promise of a new day. “Oh, this is the day that the Lord has made,” the husband would sing, and his wife would join in, making the morning even brighter.
II
One day the Man of the Forest came upon two swaddled babies beside a huge oak tree. He looked all around to see to whom they might belong, but he saw only a doe retreating among the trees. He carefully laid the babies in his wheelbarrow.
When the Woman of the Forest saw the infants, she was filled with joy. She took them up, one then the other. “Perhaps God has finally answered our prayers,” she said. They got down on their knees and asked God whether these were the children God promised them.
God said, “Perhaps . . . we will see. These children were left here by a young woman who promised to return for them soon. I promised her I would not leave them abandoned, but would have you find and care for them. I want you to nurture these babies as if you were this woman.”
The good couple did not really understand everything that God said, but they began caring for the children. The Woman of the Forest fed the twins milk from a doe that had lost its fawn to wolves after a wild chase through the forest. The Man of the Forest brought home berries he gathered from beside the creeks that bubbled cheerily through the forest. The couple were happy and content with their new charges, all the while living in the expectation that the twins’ mother would return any moment. But the days turned into weeks, then into months, then into years, and the mother still had not returned.
The good couple came to love the two children dearly. “It will break my heart when she comes for them,” said the Woman of the Forest. “Perhaps the mother will not come.”
The Man of the Forest said, “We promised God we would care for these children as if we were their mother. God promised that the mother would return. As long as we live, and as long as we remember God’s promise to us and our promise to God, we must prepare for the mother’s coming. We must love these children not as if they were our own but as if we were their mother.”
“But we know nothing about this mother,” said the Woman of the Forest. “We don’t even know why she abandoned these children.”
“God did not say she abandoned them,” said the Man of the Forest. “God said that she would return for them in due course.”
So the good couple returned to their care of the twins. And they began to imagine a wonderful story about the mother, and to share that story with the children. God had called the mother to undergo a great journey, and they--the two children and the Man and Woman of the Forest--were a part of that journey.
The two children grew to love the stories the old couple told, and they couldn’t wait for the return of their mother. Another year went by, and then another, and the children grew impatient. Every morning, as the Man of the Forest rose and sang, “Oh, this is the day that the Lord has made,” the children asked, “Is this the morning we will see our mother? Is this it?” The children never got tired of asking this question, because then the Woman of the Forest would tell them another episode about their mother.
On a day which began as any other, the mother did return. Because they loved the children as if they were the mother, and because they lived daily in the midst of God’s promises, the Man and Woman of the Forest recognized the mother immediately.
The Woman of the Forest began to cry, and the two children, standing on either side of her, rubbed her back in the way she liked.
“Are these my children?” the mother asked. “They have grown so.”
“This is your mother that we’ve told you so much about,” said the Woman of the Forest. “Go to her. She has waited a long time for you.”
The children kissed the Woman of the Forest and hugged the Man of the Forest, then ran to their mother. They climbed into her lap.
“Many years ago,” she said to them, “your father--my husband--died. I was so sad with grief I was unable to care for you. I felt as if I were lost in a dark forest. God told me to leave you two children--you were so tiny then--under a particular tree and that a man and a woman who lived in the forest would find you and take you in. God promised that they would care for you while I found my way out of my forest of sadness and made a home for you. Then, I would have you back.”
The mother hugged her twins and began to laugh and cry. “All these years I have worked hard and kept God’s promise close to my heart and tried all the while to imagine who might be caring for you--this man and woman of the forest. I told myself these wonderful stories about how you were loved and being cared for. I imagined how the man loved the forest, was not afraid of it, and taught you, my son, how to fish in the creeks. I saw how the woman loved the creatures that came begging at the cottage gate and how, my daughter, she combed your hair out at night. Then, one happy day not long ago, God smiled on me again and said it was time for me to enter the forest again, to find you, and to be your mother again. And oh, how bright and beautiful the forest looked this time!”
“Promise me,” said the Man of the Forest with a brightness in his eyes, “you will not let the children forget us. We took care of them as if we were you, as God wanted.”
The couple was heartbroken when the mother and children left. The Woman of the Forest said, “I don’t think God will keep his promise to us. Look I am getting so old, and still we have no children.”
The Man of the Forest said, “God makes the promise, but we must keep it close to our hearts. As long as we live, and as long as we remember God’s promise, we must hope for children.”
The years went by and still the couple had no children. Yet they kept God’s promise close to their hearts, and believed in it. And they continued to care for the forest and animals that lived there.
Then one day, they opened the door to their cottage, and before them stood a handsome young man and beautiful young woman. “We are the two children you cared for long ago. Our mother died, but while she lived she never stopped telling us the stories she told herself about you, how you loved us and took care of us. Over and over, she told us these stories in her heart, so our own memory of your loving ways grew deeper and stronger. She loved us as if she were you two. Because of you we are her children, because of her we are also your children, and you are our father and mother.”
The Man and Woman of the Forest were filled with joy. They praised God and embraced the handsome young man and the beautiful young woman as if they were the mother. And the handsome young man and the beautiful young woman returned the embrace as if they were the long promised children of the Man and Woman of the Forest--because they were, as God promised.
o O o
Brie
f Bio of the Author
A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I have taught English at the U. of Hawaii and the U. of Montana, and worked in Montana state government. After that I became a United Methodist minister, pastoring churches in Colorado and Montana. My short story, “The Cherry Tree,” won first prize in the 2011 Common Review Short Story Prize contest. Stories, poems, and creative nonfiction of mine have appeared in literary and other magazines, including The North American Review, the Hawaii Review, the Chariton Review, and, most recently, A River and Sound Review, Written River, The Whirlwind Review, 5x5, Assisi, In Our Own Voice, Divide: Journal of Literature, Arts and Ideas, Poems Across the Big Sky, Moonrabbit Review, and The Other Side.
Under the Hala Tree by Lowell Uda
Price: $2.99 USD. 19090 words. Published on November 10, 2012. Fiction.
In ancient Polynesia the people used their own body parts to grow life sustaining plants. Under the Hala Tree, a retelling of their stories about their origins, sparkles with wit and slightly bawdy humor. Author Lowell Uda comes by his love of these tales from his mother, who was reared as Hawaiian in a Hawaiian family.
Where to find Lowell Uda online
Website: https://www.riceuniversepublishing.com
Twitter: UdaLowell
Facebook: Facebook profile
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/lowell-uda/50/282/506