PIG PEN PERFUME

[JERRY C]

PIG PEN PERFUME

"Dad.  We've driven all morning.  Let's stop and get some lunch.  Stop at the next exit and see if there's a diner.  Look.  There's a nice sandwich deli.  Just pull in."

"O.K.  Looks nice enough.  You ever been here before?  Close to where you mentioned ...never mind?"

"No – and yes.  Let's just go in and sit down and order.  I'm starving!"



"Agh!  Did you smell that awful odor in the parking lot?  Must be some hog farms nearby?!  I don't understand how these folks can live around here."

"Yeah.  I smelled it.  Brought back some bad memories.  Let's just order.  Hand me a menu, please, Dad."

"Hmm.  Let's see.  I think I'll have a sweet tea, and a Reuben – beef brisket, kraut, dressing, on kosher rye!  What about you?"

"Dad.  I know better.  But, I'm thinking BLT ... or ham-and-cheese?!"

"Levi!  Oy vey!  What's "goiim" on under your yamaka?  What's gotten into you?"

"Very funny.  Sorry, Papa.  You know ... some of these folks actually enjoy that smell?!  It's good to be home.  Ma'am, I'll have the lamb chop special!"


(moral – the pull of pungent pork poop is powerful, persistent, pernicious.)

2 Peter 2 (NIV)
19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for "people are slaves to whatever has mastered them." 20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22 Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud."

[White Blessing]

Pigs get a bad wrap. They're not stupid animals at all.

[JERRY C]

Pigs get a bad wrap. They're not stupid animals at all.

yes.  porkers are often smarter than many of us!  we love to wallow in the mud.

p.s. in the South, pig brains are considered a delicacy?! ha!

[White Blessing]

Pigs get a bad wrap. They're not stupid animals at all.

p.s. in the South, pig brains are considered a delicacy?! ha!

Maybe they're popular because people in the south hold faith in osmosis. 

[JERRY C]

 

no, we think it helps us win with a "pigskin"!



(but, all this fun is missing the point, obviously)

[White Blessing]

I realize parables are a major factor in the Bible. However, I don't relate to human behavior being equated with dog's returning to their vomit or washed pig's returning to the mud pit.
In both cases, given animal nature that is not like unto human, there is a reason those creatures do that. And we are not like unto them at all.

Whereas the message the OP hoped to relate is failing in light of 1 John 3:9.
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

Those who 'return' to their evil ways after finding Christ did not find Christ at all. Nominal Christianity is a plague that blights the community of the Lord by the example it affords those who watch, as they believe those who are transparent frauds claiming to bear the light of Christ act in ways that lead the world to believe we are all prone to those behaviors.

Therefore, if one wishes to manufacture an allegory including swine in the telling they might consider the experience a pig farmer I know has had after committing to his own experiment that in some ways relates to the filthy nature of the beast.

Jacob inherited a huge land parcel from his grandfather and decided he was going to raise pigs for a living. He'd had an affinity for pigs since he was a boy, after visiting a petting zoo on a field trip while in elementary school. It was there that the children were introduced to a liter of week old piglets. After that they became his favorite animal.

So, when Jacob heard of his inheritance of over 67 acres he took it as a sign and committed a portion of the cash he'd also been bequeathed to the purpose of buying a huge herd of pigs.
Jacob though is a dreamer and a visionary. He decided he wasn't going to let his new pigs be seen in light of the filthy swine reputation that usually accompanied such animals. So he set out prior to their arrival and carved out the property to accommodate them quite to the contrary of the usual pig keeping methods.

He built a barn for storage of the new farms supplies, that would of course include straw, hay, etc... And then he built a pig house, which he fenced part way so they'd have an outdoor feeding trough area as well as accommodations inside during inclement weather.
He situated a gate on that feeding/housing property that was all of about two acres in total. And that gate permitted the pigs to access the pasture where bales of alfalfa were situated, as well as giant piles of sweet corn on the cob. This so the pigs would have a treat if they decided to forage for other than grass,roots or on those rows of vegetables he planted throughout the pasture so the pigs could graze at leisure there and save Jacob from having to get them use to pig feed overmuch.
He had a silo installed also so he could always have food at the ready during hard winters.

He installed pond space, not too deep, so the pigs could wade out and swim, bathe, and escape the heat. And knowing full well that eventually the 'shore' of those different ponds installed throughout the 10 acres of pasture he allocated to the pig's use, would eventually develop into mud spots. Shelters were also built just past where the mud did indeed eventually appear, so that the pigs could find shelter from the hot sun. Given they wallow in the mud for that very purpose. To save their skin from burning in high summer.

Water troughs were also situated about the pasture area and also near the ponds. Jacob bartered with a man who owned a well drilling company. Promising to give the man 4 pig's, two sexes each pair, so he could begin his own herd once the pigs Jacob was buying were old enough to be sold and transported. All this after Jacob learned he had an aquifer running under his land, which saved on water bills and allowed him to enjoy fresh water and not the treated city water that would otherwise have needed to be piped out.

Jacob does not slaughter his pigs. He raises his herds and expands their grazing and housing accommodations according to need depending on how much the herds grow in comparison to those he sells to others. Be they purchasers who seek to have them carted off to slaughter elsewhere, or for petting zoo's. Which has happened on more than one occasion because all of Jacob's pigs are hand raised in the sense that they come in contact with loving humans almost from the moment they're born. And also he sells to those who are like himself and simply love to keep and care for pigs.

This is a rather long story but it's a true one. And it is shared here as a bit of a parable in it's own right in that it is an example that serves to remind me at least, that despite what people imagine is the nature born to a thing because of what they are born as, it doesn't mean it is irrevocable. Some people get a very bad wrap because what precedes them is the expectations of others that they will be just like all the rest. When really all it takes is a change of heart and mind to see there is another way.






*edit image fix*

[Nevertheless]

**sigh**

It seems that White has an affinity for that type of story.


Nevermind, Jerry. Yours was a good story, with a good point, and much more realistic than hers.