Alfred’s Inheritance  

By Avinor Arithmayno

Let me tell you the story of a young boy called Alfred who was born in the average sense in the middle of the past century.  That is to say around about the year 1950.

 When he was old enough to understand his mother came to him.  She was growing weak from a terrible illness and she would soon to be unable to care for him.  " My son,” she said, “ it is time now for your education.  You must go to the town school."

 But at that the young boy protested and said "I don't want to go to school, because it is dull to me.  I fear that if I go to school, the teachers there will dull my spirit.  They will harness my fun, and slow me down and make me listen to them, and I will have to sit for hours memorizing things that do not interest me.  I will not go."

 After this affirmation, his mother, who was growing steadily weaker, said:  "It is sure that I cannot make you go my son, for I have not strength of limb or of speech.  But I have your inheritance, just one secret that I must give over to you before I die.  And I fear if you have no learning and no education, you will quickly discard it, and it will be a treasure lost to you.  It is in fact a secret that few men have ever listened to, yet in all of history, the secret has born out to be true and a treasure for those who can hear it.  Indeed I am tired.  Tired of living and with that, she gave a long sigh as if to suddenly give up her life.

 Alfred then implored her: "Mother please tell me of my inheritance and of the secret before you die."

 With great effort she lifted her head one last time and said, I am too weak.  But after I am dust, then ask the Parish Pastor, and he will tell you all the things that I cannot.  For this is the only inheritance I have left to give.

 Then she added:  "It is such a special secret, my son, that in hearing it, you will in fact NOT hear it, for many have listened and nodded, pretending to hear and went their way to dust, and their treasure was lost.  They went to dust, my son, as I must go.” And after saying this, his mother breathed her last and died and was buried in the village churchyard.

 Alfred mourned many days for his mother and he stayed in the old house until all his money was gone.  Then he remembered the last thing his mother had said.  All about the secret, and what was it?  Could it be, that she, in her poverty had amassed some great fortune that would be the promised inheritance for him?

 With all his food gone, the next day, Alfred packed his shoulder bag and set off to talk to the Parish Pastor.  It was about noon when Alfred entered the ancient Rectory and caught the old white-haired cleric in the midst of his midday meal.  Upon seeing the boy, the old man called to him to sit down to have a bite of bread and cheese.  “I am sorry to hear of the loss of your mother,” he said.  “She was a fine woman.”

 “Sir,” Alfred said, “I haven’t need of food, although I would like to, and thank you for your kind thoughts of my mother, but I must speak to you urgently concerning what my mother has told me upon her last breath.  It involves what she called my secret.  A secret told, yet few men have been able to hear it.”

 “Yes,” said the Pastor, “I know of it, and it is vital to you and I will tell you of it right away because I see that you are in a hurry.  I can tell that you are anxious to begin your life’s journey, and this secret will be vital to your life, but remember, just as Esau cast away his birthright, so most men will cast aside this grave secret…”

 Alfred leaned forward in his chair, listening with all his might, eager to hear what would bring his inheritance to him.  He promised himself that he would not cast it aside, but prosper in it.  He truly wanted to hear every detail of what the old man was to say.

 The old pastor stretched to make himself comfortable and took a long draught of tea before he began speaking:

“Let me say,” he began, “that out from the reaches of our little village there are four roads.  One is north, one south, one east and one west.  As you begin your journey of life, it does not matter what road you choose.  But there is a much more serious matter, and this is the heart of it.  As you go upon your way, you will meet individuals of all sorts and all stations in life.  And the first one you truly see and hear, you shall become him.  You shall, in fact, become whatever he is”

 The old man waited and paused for such a long moment that the silence became awkward.  The boy wondered if there were more to this secret.  Then he concluded that there must be more, and that perhaps the old man was now waiting for him to ask a question.  “Is there more, sir?”  he finally asked.

He shook his head.  “No, that’s it.  That’s the secret.  And the truth of it is that you have now heard my physical words with your ears, and yet it will perhaps take you a lifetime to actually hear and understand what I have just said.  It may take years before it is understood in your spirit.  In the place where it will be part of you”

"I don’t get it,” the boy said. “Is this a joke?”  His voice showed an element of anger.

 “Listen to what I am saying, son,” the Pastor was raising his voice. “We all hear and meet people, but in life there is one character that we see and hear that registers.  It chimes like a bell resounding deep within our heart.  And once that happens, we are drawn into a vision of our future.  You can be drawn to evil and death or to life and joy.  We all flow into a deeper vision of possibilities.  It is a kind of magnetism toward our destiny that takes over, if you will.”

Alfred shook his head:  “I still do not understand or hear what this is,” he said.

“Let me give you an example,” the Pastor continued, “if a person were to first meet a tailor or a grocer or a butcher, then out of one of them, you young man may say: ‘that is me’, and that is the model for my life.”  The old priest continued after a long draught of tea.  “Know for a fact that you are seeing and hearing something for the first time.  For the first time you understand who you are, because you are impressed.  Be it a musician, a mechanic or a doctor or a Pastor like me.  But in all of it there is more...”  The old priest paused and thought for a moment.  “There is the investment.  The seed, if you will, for always remember that the seed that is planted will direct your ultimate choice.”

The boy grew frustrated.  “But listen, nobody directs me.  I am my own man.  I make my own choices.  I respect and honor my mother, but….”

“Stop!” the priest said suddenly in a loud voice.  “That’s it, exactly.  You’ve hit upon it.  You honor your mother, but what is that?  Are mother’s important?  Are fathers important?  Think for a minute.  In our society we feel it is only optional to honor father and mother, but ancient wisdom says differently.  It says that honor allows us to live long and prosper upon the earth.  But in modern thinking, they argue the opposite, as to why should we honor them.  Why honor because all they gave us was grief?  They did a lot of wrong things to us.  They made us work and go to school.  They made us keep our room in order.  All we got was grief and they never let us have any fun.  We were always at war with each other.  But war means we won’t live long on the earth.”

Alfred thought of his dead mother.  It was almost difficult to think of her gone forever.  He grew sad for a moment, and he reflected upon the many days when she had scolded him and taught him the basic disciplines of life. He wondered if there would be a time when he could pull all that together and make sense of it.

But he had said it with his own lips.  He had said the word ‘honor’.  He lifted his head to look squarely at the old Pastor.  “You mean honor was not for her—but it was for me in the end?”

The old man did not answer, but he smiled, and knew that the boy had grasped the secret.  The secret that could not be heard or understood by the vast numbers of earth’s inhabitants who fought wars with their generations, and who in their ignorance continually destroyed one another.

Alfred continued.  “You mean that if I did not honor her, I would be drawn to make the wrong choices?  There would be no stopping me from running after the first flash of money, or the first taste of death or of crime.  If I had anger toward her instead of honor, I would want to get even somehow.  I’d want to somehow get back at her.  I would choose a lifestyle of drugs and death and wild rebellion.  But it wouldn’t be me or my choice but it would be an empty flash of the first thing I saw.  The thing I would become.  If I honored and loved her…it would be different.

They both rose and walked toward the front of the Rectory.  As Alfred breathed the air, the trees and clouds had a new look to them.  In that sunlit afternoon, he viewed the four roads that led out from the tiny village.  The old man placed his arm about the boy’s shoulder.  “She’s gone, Alfred,” he said.

The boy looked at him and suddenly took on a mature countenance, the look of a man who was now certain of his way in life  “No, she’s not,” he finally said  “Everything she was…I am taking with me.” And he turned and began his journey.

Exodus 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.