It's raining honey cakes - hallelujah!

Spiritual writer, lecturer, New Mexico resident and wearer of blue earrings, Megan McKenna, shared this buttery warm story about how in life, sometimes the improbable can be easy, and what was thought to be impossible just takes time and conversion. A needed lesson in our very cynical and jaded times, where fundamentalism has seemingly replaced dialogue and conversion. How do you ponder and reflect on what appears to be an impossible situation?

Talk amongst yourselves...

In the times following the collapse of the Mogul empire there was chaos, and in fleeing for their lives and being arrested many of the rich buried their treasures and jewels in fields and under houses, hoping to retrieve them in better times. But many never returned and their secrets went with them.

And it so happened that a very poor husband and wife, planting in their backyard, came upon a jewel. It was obviously worth a great deal, but what could they do? If word got around of their find, then the man and woman who were in charge of their village in these hard times would claim it as their own. They would have to wait until they could go into the city—a trip that only occurred once or twice a year—and then they could ask their relatives and friends to help them, for one was a jeweler.

But they had a young son, about 4 years old, and he was with them when they dug it up. There was no way they could keep him quiet about their discovery. He had picked up on their elation and surprise and would tell his friends as soon as he could.

That night the child was kept indoors. The mother told her husband that she had an idea, but they must work quickly. First, she had been saving honey and cinnamon to make special cakes, and took that out and then sent her husband off to a neighbor’s to borrow an oven to make the cakes. She worked through the night and made as many as she could, stretching the honey.

Just before dawn she went outside and scattered the cakes around, on the roof, in the garden, on the porch and walkway, among the bushes. Then she ran inside and woke her child. “Look,” she said, “I think it rained honey and cinnamon cakes last night! Come quickly and help me gather them before the birds discover them.” Outside in the morning light the two of them collected the cakes in bags and showed their find to the father. They ate some for breakfast and then sent the boy out to play.

And of course, the first thing he did was share the good news with his friends—he had so much to talk about. Yesterday we found a great big shiny stone in our backyard! He described it, and immediately he was overheard by the village head. She came to the boy and questioned him about it: Where had they found it, where was it now? But he was anxious to tell the rest too. “And that’s not all!” he said. “It rained honey and cinnamon cakes on our house last night. We collected them and ate some for breakfast.”

He was delighted with himself and the woman laughed—just stories children make up—and she went back to what she was doing. The cakes were impossible; everyone knew that it hadn’t rained anything the night before, and as for the other story, it was merely another tale.

What was rare or unexpected was now associated with the utterly unbelievable; no one was the wiser on any score, and the family’s situation slowly prospered. And what was thought to be impossible was, of course, reality and very true.