Trolls and the Free Market System

A peaceful farmer once lived and worked at the edge of a great forest. He went into the forest each day to find firewood with which he cooked his food and warmed his home. He collected herbs and game there with which to feed himself and his family and heal their illnesses.

In the wood there lived several trolls. The farmer, to avoid problems with the trolls, brought them gifts of food, clothing, blankets and other necessities. In exchange, the trolls allowed the farmer to gather firewood, healing plants and hunt game within the forest.

The trolls constantly fought among themselves for supremacy, though what any one of them would have done had he truly ruled the forest was never really thought through. At last, the largest and most powerful of the trolls got it into his head that all this fighting and strife among himself and his brethren was really the fault of the farmer - forgetting, of course, that trolls had been fighting among themselves for centuries before the farmer ever settled along the borders of ther forest.

It never occurred to the trolls that they were better off than they had ever been before the farmer came along. They had good food, clothing and warm blankets in the winter. They looked upon the farmer and his productive lands with envy and purposed to kill the farmer and take all that he had for themselves.

The farmer got wind of the plot (trolls tend to talk too loud) and gathered up his family in the middle of the night and fled with his tools and his knowledge of farming and went to stay in the next valley over. There he waited.

The trolls, disappointed that they had not had the pleasure of killing the farmer, were nevertheless happy to have his farm and goods. They struggled for days to figure out how to make the farm equipment work and to coax food from the farmhouse kitchen, but to no avail. Soon they had eaten all the stores from the farm and were forced to return to foraging for their sustainance.

Unfortunately, during the years of trading with the farmer, the trolls had forgotten how to forage for themselves. They soon began to starve. They began to fight among themselves and soon there were only a few trolls left alive in the forest.

Meanwhile, the farmer had been making secret forays into the forest to see what the trolls were up to. When he knew that the trolls' in-fighting had made them defenseless and weak, he gathered his family and returned to the farm. Hearing that the farmer had returned, the remaining trolls tried one last desperate attack, but they were met with dogs and guns and pitchforks and were driven back into the forest.

The next day, a large force of men from several neighboring valleys joined the farmer and together they cleared the forest of trolls. Those who survived were driven far away where they were forced to scavenge just to stay alive. The new land was poor and no one wanted to trade with them anymore because of their reputation for treachery. Over time, the trolls became extinct and were never seen in the world again.

The Moral of the Story: Probably the one about not doing anything uncouth in your own nest works best for this one.

Signs from God

When my son Micah was only 4 years old, my wife Sheila composed a song. She never knew where it came from. It was not like her other music. She always said the words came to her like dictation. The words were these:

CORIN THE PIPER
by Sheila King

Chorus:
Corin the Piper lives here no more
He and his mother left when he was four
Some day there'll be music, same as before
But it won't be easy for Corin
lives here no more

1. I sit here at the window, watchin' the children play
   They don't know I'm even here, but they come here every day.
   Sometimes the tears start fallin', and I wonder what they're for
   Until I remember, Corin lives here no more

2. He filled my days with laughter, sunshine and song,
   And Corin, the drummer, was seldom ever wrong.
   Sometimes I hear him singing, and my heart starts to soar.
   And then I remember, Corin lives here no more.

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The song which has a Scots-Irish lilt to it, was written before we ever became interested in Celtic Music. We tried to puzzle out the meaning of the song for years and where it came from, but we never could. Sheila, like most mothers, has a mental image of her children and they are always a certain age. Meg is 3, Micah is 4 and Matt is 6 in her mind's eye. We never connected the song to Micah until after his death in January 2006. One day, about two months after Micah died, she was sitting in the rocking chair that she bought when he was born. She was crying. From where she sat by the window in our living room she was looking out across the road toward the little park by the lake. Without thinking, she began humming the first verse of that song and suddenly realized that the song described what she was experiencing at that very moment.

God knew! He looked 24 years into the future and saw her sitting there by the window, watching kids play in the park across the street and he gave her a song to let her know that all of this was in his hands. He knew and he reached out across two decades and said, "I understand but don't be afraid. He is in my hands now.". She told me about her experience when I got home from work that day and recognized it immediately as something from God.

We were still puzzled about the name in the song. So, I looked it up on the Internet and there is actually a Scottish clan called Corin. My son took after my wife's McKay ancestors, tall and blonde and big. He wore a kilt to have his graduation picture taken in it, so it made sense. When Sheila wrote the song, she'd never heard the name before. I once asked her where she got the name. She said it just came with the song.

When I looked up the web page, I was struck by the Corin Clan motto:

This is the way to heaven!

I have to believe God was telling me that for my son, this was the time God had chosen to take him home so that he would win his way through to heaven. We are in God's hands after all. I worry about the line that says "He and his mother - left when he was four". I worry that the song may be for me and that I may lose Sheila too. It frightens me, but whatever happens, I do know God will make it all come out okay. The next day after she told me about the song, as I was driving home, God gave me one more verse for the song.

3. In the evenings I would watch him, walk up the path alone.
   His head bowed and weary from a day gone on too long.
   And I know that he is sleeping; till I see him once more
   But I can't forget that Corin, lives here no more.

It felt like closure and I needed that.

Here's Sheila singing the song.

The video is dark because I had to sneak this video without Sheila knowing I was recording. She is shy about singing in public or on camera. Still, her performance was perfect as always. I wish she hadn't made me sing along. I imagine this was the last time she will ever sing this song. It was recorded January, 2004 - two years before Micah died.

Finally, when our first son was born, Sheila had a long tough labor. She kept passing out between contractions. Then, suddenly, she sat straight up and said, "Isaiah 54: 1 and 13." Then she passed out again. I looked at the two ladies that were sitting with her along with me.

"Did you hear what I heard?" one asked.

"If you heard 'Isaiah 54: 1 and 13' I did?"

We all agreed that's what we heard, so I looked it up. I had my Bible beside the bed. The translation read, "Sing aloud oh barren woman, shout for joy, you who have never been in labor."

At that point everybody started laughing. I went on. "For the children of the barren one shall be more than of she who is beloved by her husband." That one I didn't get and for years it bothered us, but verse 13 was pretty clear. "Your sons shall be taught by the Lord and great shall be your son's prosperity and in triumph shall you be restored." It's the only translation where it reads just like that, but most translations are pretty close. Some say sons, some say children. We understood that and as our rambunctious, head-strong boys grew up, we often claimed that promise for God to be their teacher.

When Micah died without children, we were reminded of the "children of the barren" part of God's promise to Sheila. When we saw all the children who came to his memorial service and heard story after story about Micah's kindness to "his kids", we began to realize what this promise had meant. Though Micah never had kids of his own, he left behind more children than we will ever know. Three years later, we still meet kids who talk about him and how much he meant to them. When he died three large local elementary schools had to bring in grief counselors to help the children.

I don't know what lies along the path ahead of us, but I have confidence that God will light the way. Till then, I guess we'll just walk it as best we can.

Just one man's epiphany....

Tom & Sheila King
© 2006