Mark’s Gospel continues to challenge many of the assumptions that we still take for granted over two thousand years after Jesus walked this earth. Wealth, power and ambition still dominate human society. And the prophets and poets of our day continue to address it. One of Dr. Seuss’s less widely known stories is about Yertle the Turtle, who fancied himself king and lord of all. His brilliant plan was to stack the other turtles so that he could climb to new heights. When a small turtle named Mack complained, Yertle ignored him. Then one day Mack, “just a little bit mad,” with a simple burp brought the king’s turtle stack tumbling to the ground. In the inimitable words of Dr. Seuss,
And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
And the turtles, of course… all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.
Ambition isn’t just a problem for the rich and powerful. Most of us at one time or another find ourselves caught up in the temptation to get ahead of someone else, even if it’s just someone trying to pass us on the freeway. Parents encourage their children to excel in school, in sports, in their careers. Spouses nag one another about promotions and raises, sometimes to the exclusion of a healthy lifestyle.
Back in the 1970s, Trina Paulus crafted a parable about caterpillars climbing over one another to get to the top of a great pillar of caterpillars. Two of them finally dropped off the pillar because they wouldn’t step on one another. Stripe and Yellow discovered that only by stopping the upward climb and spinning a cocoon would they emerge as butterflies who could then effortlessly soar over the fields and the struggling, misguided caterpillar tower. Hope for the Flowers’ artwork looks a little dated these days, but its message is timeless. It’s the message of Jesus that in dying to ourselves, we rise to our true destiny as children of God. Sometimes it takes a children’s story to bring this message home.
Thanks for the “Hope for the Flowers” reminder. Balance in life is essential esp. as I age and as a role model for a young boy.
My roommate in grad school first introduced me to it at a time when I really needed its message. And she had first heard about it from her brother who was a missionary in Cambodia (later died there).