Dumb: A meditation on the folly of hunger

"I'm board!" cried the prodigal, surrounded by work in the home and fields. So he went to his father and practically wished him dead in asking for dough to spend now. His father, however, complied knowing that such reasoning couldn't be reasoned with.

"I'm limited and confined here," growled he who had status and opportunity waiting at his door. So he slammed that door on his way to the station, only pausing to ensure that he had a good list of casinos and hotels in hand.

"I'm freeee!" he shouted as cash flowed like oil, not realizing the irony at hand: that far from independently choosing expenses, each gold piece went to such predictable ends.

"I'm done for," he whispered as the last door shut on him, alone in a land where friends melted like daydreams. So he wandered the streets begging for something to do, anything but think about the life he had squandered.

"I'll eat them" I wept (now the real hero comes forth) as I looked at the dead corn husks in my hand. The shame was bitter, but nothing compared to the void in my middle that howled to be filled. Oh, what I wouldn't do to satisfy up the emptiness.

"I'm starving!" I cried in a final burst of lamentation. "I'm filthy! I'm empty! I'm ugly! I'm lost! Here I've been starving the last few weeks, and oh so willing to blame You, Father, for a failure to feed me, when I see now that it's been my mouth that was clamped shut to Your provision all this time." And as I looked from pigs to husk and back again the light finally broke...

This is nuts. I am nuts. All the ravings of every lunatic in history could not be more inane. Here I am by my own volition starving to death in a pigpen simply because I was to rushed, or stressed, or busy to eat at the table that was set all along. This is bonkers. Daft. Balmy. In a word,

dumb.

Good bye, corn husks,

I'm going home.