Aphorism of the Week

Herding is not the same as leading.

Dedicated to the Senior Class of Minneapolis DeLaSalle High School, who, after being herded by the Catholic Archdiocese into a mandatory student assembly, rationally and maturely faced off against presenters claiming their classmates with adoptive, single or gay parents were "sociologically unstable," and claiming a loving, committed relationship between two men was akin to sex with animals.

Parable of the Week

The Husband & Wife, The Spouses
Dwelling on the outskirts of a city, in a small cul-de-sac, was a loving family -- a husband and wife, their two children, and their pet dog.
Each morning, as the husband walked to his car to commute to work, he looked across their small cul-de-sac at the empty windows of a house for sale, and imagined what his future neighbors would be like.
"Hope they'll be nice," he thought to himself, "and that the husband plays golf!"
Each afternoon, as the wife picked up after their young son, daughter and poodle, she stared out her bay window's curtains at the vacant house across the way, and imagined her future neighbors.
"Oh, what if the wife likes to cook? We'll share all our best recipes!"
Each day, as the young son and daughter played in the front yard, they glanced across at the empty swing before the vacant house, and imagined what the neighboring children would be like.
"Maybe they'll let us use their swing!" the sister said to her brother.
Then, one day, the "For Sale" sign was gone.
The very next morning, a moving van arrived. The husband, wife, kids, and even the poodle stared out of their bay window at a station wagon that drove up to the new home, and from which a family poured out: a boy and a girl, their Scottish terrier, and their two parents -- who hugged, kissed and held each other arm-in-arm as they strolled up to their new home behind their scampering children.
The mouths of the husband and wife peering out from the bay window fell open.
The two parents of the new family were both women.
The husband and wife turned and stared at one another. They both began to frown.
But the slamming of their screen door jarred them from their stupor. Through the bay window they saw their kids and their poodle -- feet and paws flying -- dashing across the street to welcome their new playmates and their two mommies.
Thus, marriage is a voluntary union of sapients.

April 7, 2012, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), ©2007-2012 by Frank H. Burton, Ph.D., Founder and Executive Director, The Circle of Reason. All rights reserved.