Enlightenment

Of all the faithful souls at the congregation, none were so attentive as the little church
mouse. Obscured from human eyes by the crumbling wooden rafters of the chapel, the mouse sat
patiently and lent his round ears to the words of the pastor. Sundays were his favorite; oh, how
he loved to listen to the sermons and carry the tales back home to his family. Humans were most
interesting, the mouse thought, and they always left plenty of crumbs scattered beneath the pews.

“Mockery,” the pastor was saying, “scorn, and humiliation were wrought upon Christ
before the crucifixion. He was executed in the most wretched of deaths; betrayal from those he
thought his friends and the wicked schemes of his enemies brought his mortality to an
excruciating end.” He held up a crooked finger. “And yet,” he said, “he had lived his perfect life
only doing good unto others.”

He looked down his glasses and smiled at the congregation. About a third of the audience
were nodding off; the rest were staring back with glassy eyes. Two babies were wailing in
harmony. One man was battling a nasty coughing fit. The pastor sighed, worried for the fire and
brimstone fate of these unheeding souls.

How unfortunate for the pastor to not know of the little soul he touched with his words!
High above in the rafters, the church mouse’s heart was beating faster. The mouse rather liked
this Jesus character. He seemed to be very kind. This is what the mouse just loved about humans:
they gave everything they were to others. The thought of such selflessness filled the mouse with
so much love that he imagined himself inflating like a balloon with the sheer amount of it,
soaring up and above the roof of the chapel until he could touch the heavens. Perhaps he could
meet God if he floated far enough.

He decided then that after the service he would give all the crumbs he found to his
brothers and sisters; it struck him as something Jesus might have done. The mouse suddenly felt
the need to get closer to the pastor, as if proximity would help the words of the sermon sink into
his fur.

“If you would, turn with me now to Matthew 25:40.” There was a shuffle as the
congregation turned the thin pages of their bibles, the sound like the rustling of butterfly wings.
The mouse took this moment to scamper down the rafters, closer to the podium.

The pastor looked down at his bible when he noticed what looked like a large bug darting
across the floor. With a shriek, he lifted his foot and crushed the vermin. The pastor cringed as
the crack of brittle bones resounded through the chapel. He lifted his shoe to see the pitiful body
of a mouse. With a grimace, he kicked the thing out of sight of the congregation.

The pastor cleared his throat and continued, “And through the parable of the sheep and
the goats, Christ taught, ‘Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least
of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”

Behind the podium, the mangled body of a little mouse lay dead.