Quote
“This is demonstrated in the story of the lark. Sitting in the high branches of a tree safe from harm, he saw a traveler walking through the forest carrying a mysterious little black box. The lark flew down and perched on the traveler’s shoulder. ‘What do you have in the little black box?’ he asked.
‘Worms,’ the traveler replied.
‘Are they for sale?’
‘Yes, and very cheaply, too. The price is only one feather for a worm.’
The lark thought for a moment. ‘I must have a million feathers. Surely, I’ll never miss one of them. Here is an opportunity to get a good dinner for no work at all.’ So he told the man he would buy one. He searched carefully under his wing for a tiny feather. He winced a bit as he pulled it out, but the size and quality of the worm made him quickly forget the pain. High up in the tree again he began to sing as beautifully as before.
The next day he saw the same man and once again he exchanged a feather for a worm. What a wonderful, effortless way to get dinner! Each day thereafter the lark surrendered a feather, and each loss seemed to hurt less and less. In the beginning he had many feathers, but as the days passed he found it more difficult to fly. Finally, after the loss of one of his primary feathers, he could no longer reach the top of the tree, let alone fly up into the sky. In fact he could do no more than flutter a few feet in the air, and was forced to seek his food with the quarrelsome, bickering sparrows.
The man with the worms came no more, for there were no feathers to pay for the meals. The lark no longer sang because he was so ashamed of his fallen state.
This is how unworthy habits possess us—first painfully, then more easily, until at last we find ourselves stripped of all that lets us sing and soar. This is how freedom is lost. This is how we become enmeshed in sin.”Share
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