A parable

A parable - for which I borrow Hindu and Buddhist notions to make it possible to tell.

There was a certain man who feared not God nor regarded his fellow man; who was filled with ungoverned lust and anger.  He married, fathered a child, and abused his son daily, for he was without compassion.  In the course of his abuse, he injured his son frequently.  When the child was a young boy, in a fit of anger, the man killed his son.  He was arrested, convicted of the murder, and executed.

Time is known only to man, but not to God, for all things past, present and future are before Him at all times in one eternal "now."  God, who is merciful and whose purpose is to improve His children, to bring about their immortality and lead them into eternal life, needed this man to understand within his heart how his acts affect others.  For the man regarded not his fellow man and could not feel compassion for his wicked deeds.  With God all things are possible, and therefore the man was sent back again to mortality for further instruction.

When he returned, the man was born as the son of a certain man who feared not God nor regarded his fellow man.  His father was filled with ungoverned lust and anger.  His father abused him daily and in the course of abuse he was frequently injured.  One day the father killed him.

When men die they return to God, who gave them life, and so the child, who had once been a wicked man, returned again to God.  The Lord asked him upon his return: "Do you now understand?"

The man replied, "Yes.  I have been both.  I have been the victim and I have been the perpetrator.  I have been the father and I have been the son.  I have released my uncontrolled anger and I have been the victim of it.  I remember abusing and I also remember being abused.  I see now that when I was ungovernable and unkind it was only myself who I abused.  What I have given has returned to me and I have caused my own suffering."

The Lord said, "It is well. Now let these experiences work in you, for without the opportunity to use them to live aright, you are not yet ready."

Having been the wicked father and the abused son, the man returned again to the same time and place to now be a neighbor of the wicked man and the abused son.  How, then, ought the neighbor act so as to show he had truly learned?

What we do to another, we only do to ourselves. We will all find in the end that we are indeed our brother's keeper. We are our fathers, and we are our sons, and we ought to be One with each other.