THE COMMUNAL WINE

There was once a tribal group living deep in jungle with a very wise elder as their leader. He as leader not only leads his people well but also often can be seen giving meaningful guidance of life to the people.

One beautiful day, he gathered all head of the family representing each of their own family. They were all given invitation to dine together at elder's house. What is interesting is that the elder told each of them to bring a glass of wine with them. All the wine would then be poured into a big wine jug, which would then be shared together.

The decided day had came, each one of the invited came representing their own family, bringing with them a glass of wine as instructed. They could see a big wine jug already prepared there even before they stepped in the elder's house. They then one by one pour their wine to the jug before entering the house then seated themselves and started their dinner together. When the dining was over, the elder welcomed them to drink the wine taken from the communal wine jug.

One by one they drank the wine, and on each face, an anxious confused face was carved right away. What happened? Not long later, the elder asked, "How was the wine? Did it tasted fine?" One of the most straight answered right away, "Oh, elder, what i drank just now was not wine at all but more like plain water." How could it be like that? It happened to be that everyone present there thought in their heart, "I'll just bring with me a glass of plain water, it won't make difference anyway, since it will then be poured and mixed with all the good wine others brings. Besides, nobody would know that it is plain water i bring. After all, it won't change so much the taste of the other good wines."

In our life, we often thought that whatever unpleasant deeds we do, it wouldn't make so much difference to the whole, but imagine if everyone does it that way. We are part of change, we are part of the whole, the whole is made of one and other ones of us, we do make difference, what we do, what we choose to be, counts!