The stone-skipping little boy
As a child you may have scanned the shoreline for just the right flat rock to skip. When you were lucky, the stone you picked skimmed the the water, skipping five, six, seven or —if you had thrown it side-arm like the ageless Satchel Paige — eleven or twelve times, or more. Some day you might make it to the Bigs!
You lost all sense of time. It was you, the water, and the latest stone you had freed from among the millions of unremarkable rocks and pebbles on the shoreline. The stone couldn’t be too big or too small. It couldn’t be too heavy or too light. It couldn’t be round, rough, or jagged.. It had to be flat to skim across the water, or it would sink like a stone and disappear. Or cause a loud splash that only losers make.
Last Friday, in the darkness, a little boy picked a jaggest stone, hoping against reason, that, if he commuted its sentence as worthy of skipping its sentence, it would draw little attention. The boy leaped for joy until the splash was heard around the shoreline. The Stone did not skip or sink. It floats like styrofoam. The boy insists the Stone was flat and worth the skip. The ripples from the splash grow wider by the hour.
Three days later: Washington, D.C.
A federal judge on Monday demanded more information about the boy’s selection of the stone for special treatment.
Later in the day, the boy told reporters that he was getting “rave reviews” for picking Stone and restated his position that the Russia investigation “should have never taken place.”
While Stone floats, the little boy is sinking.
Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, author, Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017, Wipf and Stock), Chaska, Minnesota, July 14, 2020.
Views from the Edge 
Cheer up. The little boy will have another four years to finish his Shiva job. Then the change — for got good — will follow.
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That should say “for the good.” I’ve got to learn to reread what I send.
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Really quite brilliant. It’s a metaphor that could have a long literary life in this second half of a year which may decide the future for all of us.
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Glad you enjoyed the metaphor. Not so brilliant, but sure was fun!
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Don’t forget about that pebble in your shoe – that’s a small stone there to remind us to dare to hold onto what is right and good.
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The child doesn’t know much about stone-throwing, leadership, or his job. He is a widdle boy who has one emotion rage.
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Yes, Jim. A very widdle boy!
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A very wicked, widdle boy, I would aver.
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A werry wicked, middle boy!
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