The Way the Wind Blows
David Thompson was a very strong fox of high moral character but even his mind had been frayed by the horrors of war that he had seen through three tours in Iraq. But this time off, this time when he would return from hell on earth for the America he knew and loved so much, he began an odd study all by himself and it involved the things as an Army technician he relied on- driving and observing. This time, however he would look at signs, especially the signs of churches, protestors' signs, and marquees of small towns around his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. This was something he had done in Iraq because his rare ability to read Arabic and Farsi had been utilized by his commanding officer to help the Army avoid traps, but now the consequences of a momentary lapse would be far less severe. Many times in Iraq he had seen signs outside mosques which preached that America was "the great white Satan", whose materialism and lust were the source of every bad thing in the world.
What kind of sociological truths about America could he find when he looked at the signs of the churches and the signs of the protestors outside those churches? And more importantly, since entering the churches was far more possible for someone to do than entering the hate-filled extremist mosque in Iraq where everyone hated his guts for being American, what about the worshippers inside the churches? It was something that tore at the fox's soul all the time he was in the army- how is religion, normally a force of peace and moderation in the world, fueling the world's conflicts? The fox knew very well that no army ever entered a battle without God or gods on their side- believing that divine forces were at work in helping armies to victory is as old as the ancient Greeks but Western religion with its development and emphasis on peace should be different. Instead, the fox had heard countless times that God Himself wanted to see Americans and Israelis die, guilty of nothing more than being Christian or Jewish. And yet he told himself that Americans would be better than this- how wrong he was.
The first thing that woke the poor fox from his idealistic stupor about the Christian faith was a sermon he attended by a lion minister in Decatur, Georgia promising that "God would grant victory to the Americans", a sentiment which echoed well with the patriotic groups in the church but in his heart, Thompson, dressed in desert fatigues knew that there was something ominous in the lion's well-meaning words. They were quoted verbatim from an extremist imam with Americans replaced by the "sons of Allah", who would fight the Americans "Crusader-Zionists" and be rewarded in the afterlife with countless beautiful female angels who would conjugate with them for an eternity. It was people like that imam who were keeping this war going with their hateful rhetoric and svengali-like powers among impressionable young men.
At one point in his past, Thompson would take comfort in these sermons - thinking that he would soon inherit so much because he was a strong warrior that even if he died God would give him everything he wanted. But those were the prayers of a cub still wet behind the ears and all he wanted to hear was that God did not want his children (and he thought of those around him as members of a universal family) to fight each other and kill with weapons and war. In all of his jorneys to the churches in Georgia, all he heard was that God wanted his Christian soldiers to fight and win in the war. Where was the doctrine of peace in all this? Nowhere to be found at all. With a Bible in one hand, and an unloaded yet still-functional gun in the other, the fox prayed a fervent prayer to God, asking why people fight each other in a forest clearing outside Georgia. He would spend hours, contemplating the philosophies of hatred and anger and why such negative emotions, which caused men to either become dead or mad murderers, existed?
"Why are people so brutal to each other, God? I know as a soldier, I too was brutal but I do not want to study the art of war any longer." Through tears, this lieutenant Thompson who was trained and de-sensitized to the spilling of blood, a warrior asked his Lord to "make him lose all appetite for destruction and murder". If that meant finding a new job, one where he wasn't working in the Army, whose sole purpose, like any army was to kill than so be it. The forest with its singing birds and wild animals had convinced the fox that there was too much about life for it to be spilt willy-nilly for some vain-glorious cause.
That is when he saw something that changed his beliefs, that opened his eyes to the reason why he had become a remorseless murderer, a killing machine, and also why off the battlefield, he was such a gentleman. Trees, not just any kind of trees but trees that were growingat an unusual, certainly abnormal angle as though someone had planted them sideways many years ago. He saw an elderly tiger tending the trees and could not resist asking him as to why the trees had grown at a 45-degree angle.
"These trees only grow the way the wind blows, my friend", the tiger's puny age-wracked voice declared. "They are pine trees which have been exposed to wind blowing out of a natural tunnel formed by two canyons overlooking this forest. Because of the environment they were brought up in, they will grow abnormally."
That last sentence struck Thompson with the wight of a thousand rocks. His environment was filled with guns growing up, the very instruments of death and his father would often say that destroying life was the epitome of masculinity and he believed that as gospel truth as to what it took to be a man. Now, having gained some understanding about the world, he realized that violence doesn't solve a thing, mainly becuase he had tried it. In truth, he had learned that at some point, we all have to get along with each other because we belong to each other, all members of a global family. The fox was filled with emotions that for him defied categorization- for once he really could love his enemies as life was simply too precious to take away.
"Thank you, sir. Your explanation of the trees means so much to me." And he knew the lessons of these malformed trees which had grown sideways- he knew that just like these pines, he and every other creature in the world only grows the way the wind blows.