Text: Joo­nas Ma­ju­ri

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

”The wind gat­he­red its strength and blew even har­der. The trees bent down and the wa­ter sur­ged and boi­led, but the tra­ve­ler just wrap­ped his cloak more tight­ly around him.” This is an ext­ract from a fai­ry tale tit­led The sun and the wind, which was writ­ten by Ae­sop more than 2500 ye­ars ago.

I re­mem­ber from my child­hood this simp­le but deep­ly me­a­ning­ful story about the bat­t­le bet­ween the sun and the wind. The two qu­ar­re­led about how to make a man wal­king on the road take off his cloak. Whic­he­ver would ma­na­ge that first was to be the win­ner.

Why do I con­si­der this an­cient story sig­ni­fi­cant, and why would I want to quo­te it for a Päi­vä­mies blog?

Ae­sop was a Greek wri­ter, who li­ved about 600 ye­ars BCE. The Old Tes­ta­ment prop­hets Je­re­mi­ah and Eze­kiel al­so li­ved around that time.

The wind in the story did not ma­na­ge to strip the man of his cloak, but gu­ess what hap­pe­ned when the sun en­te­red the game.

”It cast its warm rays on the tra­ve­ler and al­lo­wed its gent­le warmth che­rish him.” And the man took off his cloak qui­te vo­lun­ta­ri­ly, wit­hout any harsh­ness or se­ve­ri­ty.

The sun and the wind are so­me­ti­mes ap­p­rop­ri­a­te sym­bols of our emo­ti­ons or even our per­so­nal in­te­rac­ti­ons. Warm ca­ring, ge­nui­ne kind­ness, and wil­ling­ness to ack­now­led­ge and ap­p­re­ci­a­te the ot­her per­son bear far bet­ter fruit than cool­ness and harsh­ness.

And the same is true of my­self. If I choo­se to ap­p­ro­ach my­self with a mer­ci­ful and com­pas­si­o­na­te at­ti­tu­de, mi­rac­les may hap­pen. I warm­ly re­com­mend that you try this in a sui­tab­le si­tu­a­ti­on.

I gu­ess there are not many tra­ve­lers who do not en­joy a sun­ny day af­ter the long and dark win­ter. I en­jo­yed such a long-awai­ted ex­pe­rien­ce when I re­cent­ly wal­ked ac­ross a fro­zen lake af­ter my work­day. The bril­li­ant whi­te­ness of the snow and the rosy hues of the sun­set were like a li­ving work of art that was more be­au­ti­ful than words could desc­ri­be.

We es­pe­ci­al­ly re­mem­ber the warm rays of the spring­ti­me sun when ap­p­ro­ac­hing the light and glory of the Eas­ter mor­ning.

The Lord and King of Eas­ter is like a com­bi­na­ti­on of the sun and the wind. Thou­sands of ye­ars ago al­re­a­dy, the prop­hets mar­ve­led at His vic­to­ri­ous prog­ress: “Who is this co­ming from Edom, from Boz­rah, with his gar­ments stai­ned crim­son? Who is this, ro­bed in splen­dor, stri­ding for­ward in the gre­at­ness of his strength? “It is I, proc­lai­ming vic­to­ry, migh­ty to save.” (Isa. 63:1.)

As we sail on the seas of the world, we will ex­pe­rien­ce suns­hi­ne but so­me­ti­mes al­so strong he­ad­winds, even storms. But there are al­so tail­winds to help us. The most im­por­tant thing is to tra­vel in a boat he­a­ding in the right di­rec­ti­on whose rud­der is in good hands.

Ae­sop’s tale ends in a re­con­ci­li­a­ti­on bet­ween the wind and the sun. ”And ever sin­ce that day, pe­a­ce pre­vai­led in the sky, be­cau­se the sun and the wind had le­arnt to live in har­mo­ny with each ot­her.”