A short story for a lesson
The ambitious violet
In a lonely garden, there was a beautiful violet with beautiful folds and good manners, living contentedly among her peers and swaying joyfully among the grasses.
One morning, crowned with dew, she lifted her head and looked around and saw a rose reaching upward with a slender stature and a head that towered like a flame of fire over an emerald sage.
The violet opened her blue mouth and sighed: “How little I am among the winds, and how lowly I am among the flowers! Nature has made me small and lowly, living attached to the earth's soil, unable to raise my height to the blue of the sky, or turn my face toward the sun as the roses do.
The rose heard what her neighbor the violet said, and she shook with laughter and then said: What a fool you are among the flowers! You are a blessing that you do not know the value of. Nature has endowed you with goodness, kindness, and beauty that many winds have not. Let go of these crooked inclinations and evil wishes and be content with what has been given to you. Know that whoever lowers his wing will be elevated, and whoever asks for more will fall short.
The violet replied: You console me, O rose, because you have what I wish for, and you fill me with wisdom because you are great. The sermons of the happy are good for the hearts of the unhappy, and the strong are cruel when they stand as an orator among the weak!
Nature, hearing the conversation between the rose and the violet, shook her head in wonder, then raised her voice and said:
I have known you to be gentle in your humility, sweet in your smallness, honorable in your lowliness; have you been seduced by ugly ambitions, or has your mind been robbed by empty grandeur?
The violet replied in a voice full of pleading and entreaty: O great mother, mighty in her might, immense in her tenderness, I beseech thee, with all the supplication of my heart and the hope of my soul, to answer my request and make me a rose, if only for one day.
Nature said: You do not know what you are asking, nor do you know the hidden afflictions behind the apparent greatness, so if I raise you up, change your image, and make you a rose, you will regret it when regret is useless.
And the violet said: Transform my violet being into a tall rose with its head held high ... And whatever happens to me afterward is the work of my desires and ambitions.
And nature said: I have granted your request, O ignorant and rebellious violet, but if you are afflicted with misfortune, complain of yourself.
Nature stretched out her invisible, magical fingers and touched the violet's veins, and in an instant she was transformed into a bright rose, towering above the flowers and winds.
When the afternoon came, the space was covered with black clouds lined with a hurricane, then the darkness of existence raged, lightning and thunder, and began to fight those gardens and orchards with an army of rain and winds, breaking branches and twisting erections, uprooting tall flowers and leaving only the small winds that cling to the ground or hide between the rocks.
This lonely garden endured the fury of the elements like no other garden.
As the storm passed and the clouds cleared, its flowers were scattered and only the violets hiding in the walls of the garden were spared.
One of the violet girls raised her head and saw what had happened to the flowers and trees of the garden, she smiled happily and then called her companions, saying: “Look what the storm has done to the winds of the garden,” said another violet.
Another violet said: We cling to the earth, but we are spared from the wrath of storms and winds.
A third violet said: We are small in body, but the whirlwinds cannot overcome us.
The violet queen looked up and saw that the rose that had been a violet yesterday had been uprooted by the storm and its leaves had been scattered by the wind and thrown on the wet grass, looking like a dead man shot with an arrow by the enemy.
The violet queen raised her stature, stretched out her leaves, and called to her companions, saying: “Look and see, my daughters. Look at the violet that was seduced by greed and turned into a rose, only to rise for an hour and then fall to the bottom. Let this scene be an example for you.
Then the dying rose trembled and gathered her faint strength, and in a broken voice she said:
“Listen, you ignorant and contented women, who are afraid of storms and hurricanes. Yesterday, I was like you, sitting among my green leaves, content with what I was given, and contentment was an impenetrable barrier that separated me from the whirlwinds and whims of life, and made my being limited by its safety, and finite by its comfort and tranquility. I could have lived
Like you, I am stuck to the earth until the winter snow covers me, and I go like those who went before me to the tranquility of death and nothingness before I knew the secrets and hiding places of existence other than what the violet sect has known since the violets existed on the surface of the earth. I could have turned away from covetousness and asceticism in things that are above my nature. But I listened in the stillness of the night, and I heard the Supreme World saying to this world: “The purpose of existence is to aspire to what is beyond existence.” I rebelled against myself and longed for something higher than myself, and I continued to rebel against myself and long for what was not mine until my rebellion turned into an active force and my longing turned into a creative will. I asked nature - and nature is only an external manifestation of our hidden dreams - to turn me into a rose, and it did, and nature has always changed its images and drawings with the fingers of inclination and suspense.
The rose was silent for a moment and then added in a tone full of pride and superiority: I have lived an hour as a queen. I have looked at the universe through the eyes of roses, heard the whisper of the ether with the ears of roses, and touched the folds of light with the leaves of roses. Can any of you claim my honor?
Then she twisted her neck, and in a voice that was almost panting, she said: “I am dying now. I die with what no violet before me had. This is the purpose of life, this is the essence of what lies beyond the incidentals of days and nights.
The rose closed its leaves, trembled a little, and then died with a smile on its face-the smile of one whose wishes have been fulfilled by life-the smile of victory and conquest-the smile of God.
From:JKJ/TM
