THE PARABLE OF GRUMPYGRANDPA, FEATURING JESUS CHRIST, THE BUDDHA AND DR ALBERT ELLIS

GrumpyGrandpa lived in a town near here. The most important part of his life was his 4-year-old granddaughter. He doted on her, and what’s more, he was never grumpy with her! (Well, except for the time she was running around and crashed into him, upsetting his coffee cup and spilling hot coffee on his legs. But by the time he found the burn cream in the back of the medicine cabinet, he stopped being grumpy.)

Above all the things in the world, his granddaughter craved a special doll that could only be purchased in a town about seven miles away. GrumpyGrandpa decided, “I love my granddaughter so much, I shall buy that doll for her!” The following morning, he got on the road to the town where he could buy the doll. Because he was afraid of the robbers who lurked along the road, he only took exactly as much money as he needed to buy the doll (including sales tax).

It was fine Spring day. The breeze was warm, the birds sang and the snakes were all down inside their holes. He had been walking for couple of hours when he saw two men discussing something by the side of the road. As he got closer, he realized that they were the Buddha and his colleague, Jesus Christ. He bowed to them. Jesus Christ folded his arms, put a scowl on his face and turned to GrumpyGrandpa. “Did you see that little girl over there?”

GrumpyGrandpa looked where Jesus pointed. He saw a girl the same age as his beloved granddaughter, sitting on the ground. She wore clothes that were torn and stained, and soaking wet from the night’s rain.

“The Right Action is to help her,” said the Buddha.

“I see that,” said GrumpyGrandpa. “But I’m on my way to buy my beloved granddaughter a special doll, and I only have enough money for that.”

The Enlightened One and the Son of God looked at each other. “Y’know,” Jesus finally said, “I hear you praying to Me almost every night, and believe Me, I listen with My full attention, but somehow, all these years, I never realized you were a doofus. I remember you in your Sunday School days. You were a pretty good Bible scholar, for a teenage boy. Do you happen to remember the bit about, ‘for whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto Me?”

“And I know you have studied the Eightfold Way,” said the Buddha. “Tell me, when you told us that you didn’t want to spend any money, did you really believe that was the Right Thought? Or was it an attachment to the material world?”

“Look,” said GrumpyGrandpa, “I see your points, really I do, but my granddaughter will be crushed if she doesn’t get that doll.”

“I highly doubt it!” said Dr Albert Ellis, emerging from behind a tree. “She may find it FRUSTRATING and INCONVENIENT, but it’s hardly AWFUL or HORRIBLE for her not to get her chosen doll. If those are indeed her thoughts, then the sooner she rids herself of such demanding, unrealistic Beliefs, the better for her sake — she could make herself miserable for all her years with such Beliefs!”

“Ellis,” said Jesus, “I’m not surprised to find you here, because you seem to pop up everywhere, but tell me, where do you get off telling people that it is sometimes harmful for them to believe in Me?”

“Lessee,” said Dr Ellis. “The enslavement and massacre of the Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans justified on the grounds that slaves can be forced into Christianity, the Ku Klux Klan, the Troubles of Northern Ireland, the support of the evangelical churches for the American Government’a recent immigration policies — hey, I could go on all afternoon, but that’s hardly necessary, is it?”

Jesus bowed his head. “If I had a dollar for every evil deed that was done in My name,” he murmured, “I could feed the world for years.”

“Well, while we’re airing our grievances,” said the Buddha, “Ellis, I’m tired of you using some of my teachings, when you don’t even believe in my most important one: Enlightenment!”

“Your hands aren’t clean either, Bubba, I mean Buddha,” said Dr Ellis. “About Enlightenment: How much closer to the ultimate state of non-self will your followers be when the last Rohingya is murdered?”

A tear formed in the Buddha’s eye and rolled down his cheek. “If I had a grain of rice for every time my teachings were used by murderers, I could feed all of Asia, for weeks.”

“And as for me,” said Dr Ellis, “if I had a buck for every person in need of help that I turned away with my abrasive manner of speaking and writing, I could … well, actually, I couldn’t do anything with them, because I’m no longer among the living.” He turned to GrumpyGrandpa. “You are not a bad PERSON, because you are always and ETERNALLY yourself, and you are most certainly NOT the sum of your actions, but if you turn away from the little girl and rush off to get your granddaughter’s doll, you will have done a very bad thing — and also a foolish one, because your beloved granddaughter will not actually suffer if she doesn’t get her doll. BUT …” he pointed to the little girl, who seemed to her slipping into unconscious , “SHE is suffering right here and right now. If you don’t go over there and help her THIS MINUTE, my scrawny 170 pound Jewish ass is going to kick YOUR ass into the middle of next week! That won’t make me a bad person, just a person who had choose between two different bad things. Guys,” he said to the Buddha and the Christ, “turn your backs.”

The Christ and the Buddha turned their backs. Dr Ellis rolled up his sleeves. In that moment, GrumpyGrandpa was enlightened.

“Guys, I’m sorry,” he told the three Teachers. “I’ve been studying your works my entire adult life, but I see I fell far short of living my ideals. Thank you. Now, I hate to get Enlightened and run, but I have things to do.”

GrumpyGrandpa went over to where the little girl sat on the grass. He saw that she was covered in sores as well as her other afflictions. “I know enough Bible history to understand that the people of Samarra were robbers and slave-takers. But one day a Samaritan, who had probably done his share of robbery and slave-taking, found one of his mortal enemies, a Jew, in desperate need and saved his life, even paying out good money to make sure he was cared for. How is it that I, who never robbed anyone or took a single slave, failed the test that the Good Samaritan passed? This little girl isn’t even my hereditary enemy!”

Dr Ellis appeared again, arms crossed ands scowl in place. “I figured you’d wander off the beam again, shmegegge. Shame? Guilt? You can deeply wish that you done something differently in your past, but choose unconditional self-acceptance instead of guilt. Know where you messed up, change yourself, make amends if needed, but guilt is an entirely inappropriate feeling. Besides being a colossal waste of time and energy, if YOU frequently feel guilty, you will expect OTHER people to feel guilty, and who are you the judge them? Also, guilt gets in the way of unconditional acceptance of self and others, and you NEED that to shed your self-disturbance. Shame? That’s just fear of what others will say about you, and why would you even care about that? Now, if you will take a moment to stop it with the self-downing and get your head in the game, would you kindly take notice of the fact that the little girl is shivering AND HER PULSE IS DROPPING! You said that you would do a good thing, so GET ON WITH IT!”

“Hello,” said GrumpyGrandpa to the little girl. “Don’t be afraid of me; I’m here to help you. First I’ll carry you to that inn over there and feed you. Then we’ll go to the Wal-Mart next door and get you some better clothes.” The little girl hesitated a few moments and then slowly nodded. GrumpyGrandpa picked her up and carried her to the inn, where the innkeeper’s wife wrapped her in warm blankets and towels. She volunteered to go to Wal-Mart on GrumpyGrandpa’s behalf and he gave her half the money he had saved to get his granddaughter her special doll. While the little girl ate pancakes by the fire, GrumpyGrandpa asked the innkeeper about her parents. “Well,” the innkeeper said hesitantly, “her parents died on account of the pandemic.” (Did I mention that this was the Year of COVID? Well, it was.) “Nobody had the time or money to take her in, so she’s been begging in the streets since then.“ GrumpyGrandpa started to get outraged at those words, but then he remembered at the last moment that anger is not the Right Thought, and furthermore, he had no right to say that the people of the town were evil, although they had done a bad thing.

It was getting late. Time for GrumpyGrandpa to start for home if he was to arrive by sundown. He and the little girl started out walking, but she was sleepy and sore, so GrumpyGrandpa has to carry her. My, how his back and his arms began to hurt! “But this isn’t TERRIBLE,” he thought. “It’s inconvenient and I would strongly prefer not to be in such pain, but my goal is to keep the little girl safe, so I can certainly tolerate a little pain to achieve my goal. It’s bad, but far from HORRIBLE.”

Just then a man drove up in a ten year old Cadillac. He stopped and rolled down his window. “Hey fella, y’all need a ride?”

“Yes, thank you, we’re only going to the next town, but I’m tiring, and we need to be home before the robbers come out at sundown,” said GrumpyGrandpa.

“Well, hop on in!” the driver said. “I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers, but you and your daughter look pretty harmless.”

“She’s not my daughter, but my stepdaughter may adopt her. By the way, I’m GrumpyGrandpa.”

“I’m Sam Aritan,” said the driver. “I sell used cars, used tires, used appliances and used trailers. Oh, and used boats now, too. I’ll let you in on a little secret: if you ever pass one of my stores, keep walking! My merchandise is worse than some of the stuff rusting in the scrapyard!” Sam Aritan gave a huge laugh.

Soon enough, they reached GrumpyGrandpa’s stepdaughter’s house. He thanked Mr. Aritan one last time, and the used items merchant drove off, tipping back a flask as he merged with the traffic. GrumpyGrandpa shook his head in dismay, and asked Jesus to watch over him, and the drivers who shared the road with him.

GrumpyGrandpa rang his stepdaughter’s door bell. GrumpyGrandpa’s beloved granddaughter answered the door. “Grandpa, you brought my dolly!”

“Well, no, I had to spend the money helping her.” He pointed to the little girl. “She’s going to have to live here, at least for a little while, and maybe for years.”

The beloved granddaughter’s eyes got round and big as saucers. “Grandpa, you … you brought me a PLAYMATE!? This is AWSOME! I haven’t had one since lockdown!” The two girls hugged, and then ran off together to shriek for the rest of the evening.

GrumpyGrandpa’s stepdaughter did indeed adopt the little girl. The next few years were difficult. Money was always short. The pandemic seemed to go on and on. The men who ruled over the country did things that hurt many, many people. (This, of course, did not make them EVIL men, just men who often did cruel and deceitful things.) GrumpyGrandpa had nothing but his pension, and he sometimes had to dig deep into it to keep everybody housed, fed, clothed and warm. The day he sold his recliner and couch to pay the gas bill, he stood by as the pickup men took the furniture out of the house. He thought “Well, this is certainly uncomfortable and inconvenient — but it isn’t HORRIBLE or TERRIBLE, and I certainly CAN stand this. I want to keep my family warm in this long winter, so I had better be prepared to make some sacrifices to achieve my goals.”

After the little girl had lived with GrumpyGrandpa’s stepdaughter for a whole year, he suddenly realized that he had been given the most precious gift he could imagine: a new beloved granddaughter! Her love brought tears to his eyes every day. “I can face whatever happens in the future, even sickness and death, because those are such small things compared with the love of a child!”

Before we leave GrumpyGrandpa, we’ll look back for a moment on the evening of the day when he brought the little girl to his stepdaughter’s house. After dinner, he read several pages of the Buddha’s teachings on Right Thoughts. He filled out several worksheets written by Dr Ellis to help people recognize their demanding and unrealistic Beliefs. Finally, before he lay down for an exhausted sleep, he prayed to Jesus Christ for help to be a better man and take up his burdens gladly.

Truth is where you find it. All truths take you on the same path, if you have the wit to see it.

NOT THE END.
THE WORK NEVER ENDS.
ACCEPT THAT YOU WILL FAIL AND START OVER MANY TIMES.
REMEMBER THAT YOUR HEART AND YOUR BRAIN
ARE THE SAME ORGAN IN TWO DIFFERENT PLACES.
THEY CANNOT BE SEPARATED, AND IT IS FOOLISH TO TRY.