By David Armstrong
Two farms nestle together in a beautiful valley. Both receive the same amount of sun and rain. One farm produces tall, green corn, with fat milk cows in the pasture and corpulent chickens in the yard surrounding a lovely home. The neighboring farm, however, stands in stark contrast, with withered cornstalks, emaciated cows, scrawny chickens, and a rundown, ramshackle house that loses more shingles with every passing storm.
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Melanie scooped a double-handful of gray clay out of her trough and set it on the wheel. With a deep breath, she paused, staring at the formless lump, trying to decide what to sculpt next. A shape materialized in her mind. With gray-spattered hands, she touched either side of the hunk of clay. Then she stepped on the pedal.
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Weeks before his birthday, Niall decided he wanted a pair of new shoes for football. But not just any pair. He wanted the ones that he’d seen his favorite star player talk about in a TV commercial. That made them the best shoes, right? The design and colors made them just that much more awesome.
Niall made sure to tell his mother that’s what he wanted for his birthday and that it was the only thing he wanted. And then he waited.
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A certain family had some work being done in their basement, which had no windows. An interior door led to the stairs that descended to the basement. The parents warned their kids multiple times not to go down there because most of the electricity had been disconnected and the fixtures had no light bulbs; it was dark, and they could easily get hurt fumbling around among the equipment.
One day, the teenage son became angry at his parents and felt the urge to run away. He didn’t really have the nerve, though, so instead he decided to hide out in the basement. He grabbed some snacks and slipped through the door that led to the stairs.
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A certain man owned a bicycle repair shop in a busy city. Business was good because many people in his tropical country couldn’t afford automobiles, so if they had their own vehicles at all, they were bikes. At the same time, expenses were plentiful, limiting his prosperity—he just made his way in life a day at a time like pretty much everyone else.
That said, this man had one thing that made him feel rich: a small, golden statue of an ancient king that had been handed down in his family from father to son for generations stretching across several centuries. He kept it locked in a cabinet in the apartment over his shop where he lived.
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The Weekly Parable 