Author: Daniel Harper

Hermes and the Woodman

Another in a series of stories for liberal religious kids. This story is one of Aesop’s Fables, ancient Greek tales dating from about 500 BCE. Aesop’s Fables typically get modernized, with morals that are borrowed either from Poor Richard’s Almanac, or from greeting cards or fortune cookies. Instead of completely modernizing this fable, I’ve tried to retain at least a little of the ancient Greek sensibility — so I left off the obvious moral, “Honesty is the best policy,” and instead used a more literal translation of the original moral. I also like the fact that this myth includes an actual Greek god.

A Woodman was chopping wood alongside a river, when his axe flew out of his hands and and was carried away by the swift current. The Woodman sat down on the riverbank and began to weep; for he earned his living with his axe, and what was he to do without it?

Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and himself the god of trade, merchants, roads, and many other things, saw the Woodman weeping, and took pity on him. The god’s winged sandals carried him to the riverbank, and he appeared before the Woodman. “Why are you crying, Woodman?” he said.

“I have dropped my axe in the river, and the swift current has carried it away,” said the Woodman.

Hermes went into the river, and emerged holding an axe made out of solid gold. “Is this your axe?” he asked. But the Woodman said it was not his. Hermes went into the river again, and this time brought up an axe made of solid silver. But again, the Woodman said it was not his.

Once more, Hermes went into the river, and this time brought up the Woodman’s axe. This time, the Woodman recognized his axe. Hermes rewarded the Woodman’s honesty by giving to him, not just his own axe, but the gold and silver axes, too.

When the Woodman told this story to his friends, one of them grew jealous. He decided to do the same thing as the Woodman. The jealous friend went to the riverbank, began chopping wood, and then let his axe fall into the river, where it was carried away by the swift current. He sat down and began weeping.

The god Hermes appeared and asked what had happened, and the man said that he had lost his axe in the river. Hermes went into the river and brought up an axe made of solid gold. Hermes asked if this was the axe he had lost. The man said happily, “Yes, this is it.” Hermes hated such shameless greed. The god kept both the golden axe, and also the axe the jealous man had dropped into the river.

This fable shows that the divine is in agreement with people who are just, and the divine is opposed to people who are unjust.

Sources: V. S. Vernon Jones, Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation (1912); Laura Gibbs, Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation, Oxford University Press (2002); and a machine translation of the ancient Greek text from the Chambry edition (no. 253).

Numskull and the Rabbit

Another in a series of stories for liberal religious kids. This one is from the Panchatantra, an ancient Sanskrit text that contains many well-known folk tales.

In the forest lived an arrogant lion whose name was Numskull. He only needed one animal a day for his food, but he enjoyed killing for the fun of it. So he would kill any animal he saw, whether or not he was hungry, just because he enjoyed it.

At last, all the other animals of the forest — deer, boars, buffaloes, wild oxen, rabbits, and more — agreed to go to the lion together, to try to stop this slaughter. When they approached Numskull, they got down on their knees to bow to him. Speaking with the utmost humility, they said, “O King of all the animals, we beg you to end this endless slaughter of other animals. For as our sacred book tells us:

“When a fool does evil in this life
For the sake of bliss,
They shall have a thousand future lives
Pass in wretchedness.

“We beg you to think of what will happen to you in your next reincarnation, if you continue to slaughter us willy-nilly. We humbly ask that you simply stay at home, and we will send one animal each day to serve as your meal. This way, you will never be hungry, and for our part we will not have to worry about our families. And you can perform the duties of a king without risking punishment in your future lives. For as the proverb says:

“When a king tastes power like a potion,
Sipping bit by bit,
He will not overload his life,
He’ll fully relish it.”

Numskull listened to the animals, and replied, “You have convinced me. But be warned! If you do not send me an animal to eat every single day, I swear that I will come and kill all of you.”

Relieved, the animals promised to live by this agreement. From then on, the animals were able to roam about the forest without fear. But each day, they had tosent one of their number to serve as Numskull’s midday meal. Each day, it was the turn of a different kind of animal, whether deer or gazelle or boar, to send forth one animal of their species.

Rabbit-day came around, and the rabbits decided on one of their number to send to the lion. As the other animals sent her off to die, this rabbit thought to herself, “Somehow, it must be possible to kill this horrible lion. For it is said:

“In all things wisdom surely can prevail,
In nothing can determination fail,
There is nothing flattery cannot subdue,
Nothing enterprise cannot win through.”

And having repeated this little poem, the rabbit thought to herself, “Perhaps I can even kill a lion.”

She went along slowly, thinking of ways to defeat the lion. She was several hours late when at last she came to the home of the lion. Because she was so late, the lion had become very hungry, and was thinking to himself, “I cannot stand waiting so long! First thing in the morning, I shall go out and start slaughtering all the animals.”

While the lion was thinking these thoughts, the rabbit came up and bowed low. The sight of this small little rabbit, barely a single bite, enraged the lion. “You worthless animal!” he roared. “Not only are you late, but you are too small to make a full meal. I shall kill you first, and then I shall kill all the other animals besides.”

The little rabbit bowed low again, and humbly said, “O great lion, the fault is not mine, nor does it belong to the other animals. If you will listen, you will hear the real cause.”

The lion replied, “Tell me quickly, before I eat you up.”

“O great lion,” said the rabbit, “today it was the rabbits’ turn to supply an animal for your meal. When they saw how small we rabbits are, they sent six of us together so you would have enough to eat.

“Yet as we walked to your home, another lion leaped out of a huge hole in the ground, saying, ‘And where do you think you are going? You had better pray to your favorite god before I eat you up.’ I spoke for the other five rabbits, saying, ‘We are travelling to become the dinner of the great lion Numskull, according to our agreement with him.’ To which this great lion said in return, ‘Well, this whole forest belongs to me, which means that the animals can only make an agreement with me. This Numskull is merely a small-time thief. Go call him and bring him here at once. Whichever one of us is stronger shall be the king of the forest, and shall eat all you six rabbits, and whatever other animals he pleases.’

“So said this great lion,” concluded the little rabbit, “and this is why I am late. As for the rest of it, your majesty shall be the judge.”

Numskull grew angry at this. “Show me where this thief of a lion is, and be quick about it. He shall feel my anger.”

“Yes, your majesty,” said the rabbit. “Yet you should know this other lion lives in a fortress with stone walls, where it is difficult to attack him.”

“Little rabbit, show me this thief,” said Numskull. “I will kill him even though he hides within a fortress.”

“Very well,” said the little rabbit. She led Numskull to a place where there was a well. “You see, your majesty, as soon as he saw you, that thief of a lion crawled into his hole. Come, I will show you to him.”

“Hurry,” said Numskull, “for I grow more and more angry.”

The rabbit had Numskull look down into the well. The lion saw his own reflection in the water deep down in the well. He gave a great roar. Out from the well came an echo, sounding twice as loud. Upon seeing another lion and hearing it roar, Numskull hurled himself down the well to fight his rival, and drowned to death.

The little rabbit brought the good news to the other animals. They showered compliments on her, and they all lived in the forest happily and peacefully ever after. From this comes a proverb:

Wisdom by itself is power, but not where
Power and folly together make a pair.
The rabbit played upon the lion’s pride,
Outsmarting him, and so the lion died.

Source: Arthur W. Ryder, The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma: English Translation (Univ. of Chicago, 1925), p. 81-88.

The Blue Jackal

Another in a series of stories for liberal religious kids. This one is from the Panchatantra, an ancient Sanskrit text that contains many well-known folk tales.

Once upon a time there lived a jackal named Fierce-Howl. This jackal lived in a cave not far from a city. Now this jackal felt throat pinched with hunger, and one night he went hunting in the city. But the dogs that lived there snapped at him with sharp teeth, and terrified him with their barking. He ran this way and that in order to escape, and blundered through the door of a house where there lived a man who made his living dying cloth. A huge vat of indigo dye was just inside the door, and in his haste the jackal tripped and fell into it.

By the time the jackal had managed to crawl out of the vat, all the dogs had gone. So he slunk back into the forest. Once he was in the forest, some of the other animals who lived there stared at with astonishment at this strange blue-colored beast. They cried out, “What is this creature whose coat is richly colored with the remarkable color?”

Then they fled in terror, and quickly spread the news through the forest: “Some strange beast has come into our forest! No one knows from whence he came, or what he might be like.” And the animals began to say to each other, “We must flee from the forest!” for they knew the old animal proverb: “When you do not know who someone is, it is wise not to trust them.”

Fierce-Howl saw how frightened they all were, and had an idea. He called out to the animals, “Why do you flee in terror from me? The god Indra saw that the animals of the forest have no king, and he has appointed me as your king. My name is Fierce-Howl. You may rest in safety in my strong paws.”

When they heard this speech, the lions, tigers, leopards, monkeys, rabbits, gazelles, jackals, and all the other animals bowed humbly to Fierce-Howl, saying, “Your Majesty, please tell us what our duties are.”

Fierce-Howl made appointed the lion to be prime minister, the tiger to be lord of the king’s bedchamber, the leopard to be the keeper of the king’s food and drink, the elephant to be the royal doorkeeper, and the monkey he appointed the bearer of the royal parasol, to keep the hot sun off the king’s head. But fearing the other jackals might recognize who he really was, he cuffed them and drove them away.

And so the jackal lived in royal state. The lions and tigers killed food animals for this king, and laid them before him. And King Fierce-Howl divided the food animals, and distributed them among his subjects according to their need and their service to the king, just as all kings do.

One day when King Fierce-Howl was sitting in his royal court, he heard a pack of jackals begin to howl. This brought back old memories of the days before he became king. A tear came to his eyes, and without thinking he stood up and began to howl back. The lions and tigers, upon hearing this, realized that their king was nothing but a jackal. The jackal saw that he had made a horrible mistake, and stood there ashamed and downcast.

Lions and tigers do not care for jackals, since jackals may try to steal their food. The lions and tigers looked at each other and said, “We have been deceived by a jackal. He deserves to die.” And that was the end of the jackal.

Source: Arthur W. Ryder, The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma: English Translation (Univ. of Chicago, 1925), pp. 122-124.

Snowmelt

The temperature has been above freezing most of the week. This afternoon, it got up to about 38 degrees F. (3 C.) with light rain and drizzle. I wanted to see how much the snow was melting in the woods, so I went for a walk. I did see some places that were now bare of snow, mostly on south-facing slopes or where the high winds of the blizzard hadn’t allowed much snow to accumulate.

Woodlands with snow covering most of the groun.

Most of the ground remains covered by snow, though. There are still places with a foot of snow or more. Crossing one field, I had especially tough going. Sometimes I’d sink up halfway up to my knees. In one of the deepest snowdrifts I stopped and stuck my hand down to see how deep the snow was. I didn’t manage to reach the ground, but I’d guess there was still a foot and a half of snow.

My legs in the snow, with the snow halfway up to my knees.

In many places, meltwater ran underneath the snow. Some of the trails had turned into shallow streams. My wet boots grew heavy from the weight of the water. I walked to a place where skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) usually grows, but I couldn’t get close enough to see if any had emerged from the snow due to a foot of water flooding the area.

At last I made it back to the car. What should have been an hour long walk took two hours. My boots were soaked, my raincoat and hat were dripping with rain. I only wish I could have stayed out longer.

The Old Man at the Frontier Loses His Horse

Another in a series of stories for liberal religious kids. Dr. Kate Sullivan, the DRE with whom I work, told another version of this story in the Sunday service two days ago. She based her version on the famous Alan Watts retelling of the story. Today, we tracked down the origins of this story. It comes from the Huainanzi, a Chinese philosophical text from the 2nd century CE. I did some more research on my own, found three or four different translations, and decided to do my own retelling of the story, that hews more closely to the Chinese original.

Many years ago, there was a man who was a Daoist, and he and his father understood how good fortune and bad fortune can turn one into the other. This man lived near the border of China, close to where the land of the barbarians began.

One day, his horse got loose and ran away into the land of the barbarians. The man’s neighbors came to tell him how sorry they were that he had lost such a fine horse. They all knew how expensive it would be to get a new horse. But the man’s father said, “How do we know this is bad? Perhaps it is a blessing.”

Some months later, the man’s horse returned from the barbarian lands to his household. Following close behind the man’s horse came another horse. Horses from the barbarian lands were known as being especially fine animals. The man’s neighbors came to tell him how pleased they were for him. But his father said, “How do we know this is good? Perhaps it will bring misfortune.”

Those two horses had babies, and soon the man owned many fine horses. The man’s son loved to ride all these wonderful horses. Alas, one day the son fell off the horse he was riding and broke his thighbone. The man’s neighbors came to tell him how sorry they were that his son was so badly injured that he would walk with a limp the rest of his life. But the man’s father said, “How do we know this is bad? Perhaps it is a blessing.”

The next year, a large army of the barbarian Hu people invaded China from across the border. Every man who was strong and able-bodied took their bows and went to fight. The fighting was so fierce that nine out of every ten young men from the border lands died in battle. But because the man’s son was lame, he could not go off with the army. He and his father and gradfather managed to protect each other, and so they survived the war.

And so you can see:

Good fortune becomes bad fortune,
Bad fortune becomes good fortune;
Their transformations never end,
So deep we cannot understand.

(And from this story comes the Chinese proverb, or chengyu: “When the old man lost his horse, how could you know that it was not good luck.”)

Sources: Huainanzi, ch. 18:7. Based on several translations: (1) Lin Yutang, The Importance of Understanding: Translations from the Chinese (Cleveland/New York: World Publishing, 1963), p. 385; Yutang’s loose translation is somewhat similar to the more famous version told by Alan Watts, but Yutang keeps closer to the original Chinese; (2) The Huainanzi, trans. John S. Major, Sarah A Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, and Harold D. Roth (Columbia Univ. Press, 2010), pp. 728-729; a scholarly translation; (3) The Chinese Text Project version of the Huainanzi; this is a scholarly website with bilingual text, Chinese and English https://ctext.org/huainanzi/ren-xian-xun#n3395. Story revised 6 March 2026 with simpler language.

MFC notice

The Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has sent out the following notice:

“I am writing to inform you that the Ministerial Fellowship Committee voted recently to remove the Rev. Bob LaVallee from fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association for violating UUMA Ethical Standard #10, which prohibits sexual contact, sexual harassment, sexualized behavior and sexual relationships with anyone the minister serves, and Ethical Standard #13, which prohibits engaging in words or actions that degrade the vocation of ministry.”

A quick web search shows that Bob LaVallee was the associate minister of the Albuquerque congregation for about five years, up until 2025. As always, I’m making no judgement myself about any of these notices — I’m not part of the MFC, and it’s been many years since I was part of any congregation where a minister was removed from fellowship. Especially so in this case, as I’ve never heard this name before, and I know nothing about the Albuquerque congregation.

Blizzard clean-up

My best guess is that we had between 24 and 30 inches of snow (see note at end of post). Today the temperature got above freezing, and the snow settled down some. But there is still a lot of snow on the ground. Some of the snow piles left by plows along the streets towered five or more feet above the road surface.

Our neighborhood, known as Cohasset Village, is a business district with on-street parking. The huge snow piles lining the streets took up much of the parking. So tonight, town employees and contractors are here in the Village with one large tractor with a bucket loader, three medium-size bucket loaders, one of those little mini bucket loaders, several police cars, and a long line of dump trucks. The little bucket loader climbs up on the sidewalk and pushes the snow into the street. The medium size bucket loaders carry the snow to a central collection point, the junction of Elm and Main streets, two doors down from our apartment. Then the big bucket loader scoops the snow into the waiting dump trucks, as one by one they drive up, get loaded, and drive off again. Our second floor apartment is the perfect place to watch the action.

Carol watched a murder mystery on TV. I thought it was more fun to watch the snow being pushed around and loaded in dump trucks — showing that I still haven’t gotten over my preschool fascination with heavy equipment at work.

Looking south down Main Street — Elm Street is to the left, just out of the photo.
Continue reading “Blizzard clean-up”

Elizabeth Tarbox biographical information

Recently, I used something written by Rev. Elizabeth Tarbox as a reading in a Sunday service. I realized I knew next to nothing about her, so I decided to look up her obituary in the Unitarian, Universalist, and UU Yearbooks (now digitized and online). She died in October, 1999, which means her obituary would be in the following year’s Yearbook — except that was the one year when the UUA decided not to publish minister’s obituaries in the Yearbook. I found no other obituary or life summary for her online.

With a little bit of research, I was able to generate the timeline below — which tells me most of what I want to know:

  • 5 March 1944, born Elizabeth Irene Peck to William and Irene Hard Peck in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom (birth record)
  • 1963, married Charles E. Tarbox (1938-2016) in St. Albans; she and Charles later had a child (marriage record; Charles Tarbox obituary in Boston Globe)
  • 1968, she and Charles immigrated to the United States; applied for Social Security card (Social Security records; Charles Tarbox obituary in Boston Globe)
  • 1986, B.A. in philosophy, Bridgewater State College (Bridgewater State yearbook for 1986)
  • c. 1980s, congregant at First Parish Duxbury, Mass. (mentioned in FP Duxbury newsletter)
  • c. 1986, began studying at Harvard Divinity School
  • c. 1988-90, served as student minister, First Parish Norwell, Mass. (mentioned on FP Norwell Facebook page)
  • 1990, graduated Harvard Divinity School (UUA Yearbooks)
  • 1990, ordained (UUA Yearbooks)
  • 1990, settled at First UU Society of Middleboro, Mass. (UUA Yearbooks)
  • 1993, publication of Life Tides: Meditations
  • 1997, settled at First Parish in Cohasset, Mass. (UUA Yearbooks)
  • 1997, publication of Evening Tide: Meditations
  • 1999, resigned from First Parish in Cohasset due to ill health (First Parish Cohasset records)
  • 31 Oct. 1999, died in Duxbury (Duxbury Annual Report; Social Security records)

I’m mostly satisfied with this timeline, though I wouldn’t mind finding answers to a couple of questions. First: When did she become a Unitarian? — it’s even possible she was raised Unitarian, as there was a small Unitarian fellowship in St. Albans in the 1950s, according to Alan R. Ruston, Unitarianism in Hertfordshire (Watford, Hertfordshire, U.K., 1979), p. 26. Second: What was she doing between marriage in 1963 and starting college in the 1980s — which includes a subsidiary question: Why did she come to the United States?

Continue reading “Elizabeth Tarbox biographical information”

Blizzard, part 2

8:15 p.m. — Power went out two houses down from us, but so far we still have it. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Latest National Weather Service (NWS) reports show more than 30 inches of snow from Rhode Island up through southeastern Massachusetts. The nearest trained NWS spotter is in North Scituate, which is about 3 miles from here; that observer recorded 29 inches of snow as of 5:00 p.m.. Carol and I shoveled at about 5, and another couple of inches has fallen since then, so I’m pretty sure we have more than 30 inches at this point. And it’s still snowing.

Early to bed tonight. Beginning at seven tomorrow morning, we’re both volunteering with Cohasset Emergency Management to help staff the warming center for people who have lost power.

Blizzard conditions are defined by the NWS as visibility of 1/4 mile or less and wind speeds (sustained or frequent gusts) of 35 mph or higher, for 3 hours or more. These conditions were officially reached throughout eastern Massachusetts, from Providence, R.I. and Martha’s Vineyard, west to Worcester and north to Beverly, Mass. I guess we start calling this the Blizzard of ’26.

Woman standing in front of a snow-covered house.
Carol and I shoveled a path to the front door of the church’s Parish House. Carol is wearing the anorak that her father had when he wintered over in Antarctica. The snow wasn’t very deep where we were shoveling, because the wind had scoured it away. A friend with an anemometer saw 60 mile an hour wind gusts this morning.