EL SACO DE CARBON......

EL SACO DE CARBON


Un día, Jaimito entró a su casa dando patadas en el suelo y gritando muy molesto.
Su padre lo llamó. Jaimito lo siguió, diciendo en forma irritada:

- Papá, ¡Te juro que tengo mucha rabia! Pedrito no debió hacer lo que hizo conmigo.
Por eso, le deseo todo el mal del mundo, ¡Tengo ganas de matarlo!

Su padre, un hombre simple, pero lleno de sabiduría, escuchaba con calma al hijo quien continuaba diciendo:

- Imagínate que el estúpido de Pedrito me humilló frente a mis amigos. ¡No acepto eso!
Me gustaría que él se enfermara para que no pudiera ir más a la escuela.

El padre siguió escuchando y se dirigió hacia una esquina del garaje de la casa, de donde tomó un saco lleno de carbón el cual llevó hasta el final del jardín y le propuso a Jaimito:

- ¿Ves aquella camisa blanca que está en el tendedero? Hazte la idea de que es Pedrito y cada pedazo de carbón que hay en esta bolsa es un mal pensamiento que va dirigido a él. Tírale todo el carbón que hay en el saco, hasta el último pedazo. Después yo regreso para ver como quedó.

El niño lo tomó como un juego y comenzó a lanzar los carbones pero como la tendedera estaba lejos, pocos de ellos acertaron la camisa.


Cuando, el padre regresó le preguntó:

- Hijo ¿Qué tal te sientes?

- Cansado pero alegre. Acerté algunos pedazos de carbón a la camisa.
El padre tomó al niño de la mano y le dijo:
- Ven conmigo quiero mostrarte algo.

Lo colocó frente a un espejo que le permitió ver todo su cuerpo. ¡Qué susto!
Estaba todo negro y sólo se le veían los dientes y los ojos. En ese momento el padre le dijo:

- Hijo, como pudiste observar, la camisa quedó un poco sucia pero no es comparable a lo sucio que quedaste tú.


El mal que deseamos a otros se nos devuelve y multiplica en nosotros. Por más que deseáramos o pudiéramos perturbar la vida de alguien con nuestros pensamientos, los residuos y la suciedad siempre queda en nosotros mismos.


Ten mucho cuidado con tus pensamientos porque ellos se transforman en palabras.
Ten mucho cuidado con tus palabras porque ellas se transforman en acciones.
Ten mucho cuidado con tus acciones porque ellas se transforman en hábitos.
Ten mucho cuidado con tus hábitos porque ellos moldean tu carácter.
Y ten mucho cuidado con tu carácter porque de él dependerá tu destino.

BEING OBAMA'S BROTHER.......

By George Obama ] NEWSWEEK
Published January 2, 2010
From the magazine issue dated Jan 11, 2010.






George Obama sits in front of his home in a slum in Nairobi, Kenya

In November 2008, I stood in a bar in Kenya watching Barack Obama give his victory speech. From the wild cheering of the crowd on TV, and his repeated appeals to them personally—"You said," "You heard," "You called"—I felt as if the people of America knew this man far better than I, even though we shared the same father. If there was a leading light in the Obama clan, he was it; and if there was a shadowed place that no one liked to talk about, then that, I guess, was me.

After a relatively privileged childhood, I crashed and burned in my teenage years. I had migrated from the plush suburbs of Nairobi, Kenya, to the wild chaos of the ghetto. I lost myself in drink and drugs and became a gun-toting gangster. In my early 20s, I spent a year in a Nairobi prison on robbery charges. My imprisonment included a starvation diet and 24/7 lockdowns in overcrowded, airless cells. But I came out a different man, resolved to turn my life around and find a different path.

Along with some fellow slum dwellers, I set up a youth group for ghetto kids. My passion was football (soccer), which is followed religiously throughout Africa. When we first established the Huruma Centre Football Club, none of our kids had so much as a pair of football boots, let alone any uniform. Some were so hungry when they turned up that they had no energy to play. At other times, the team had to trek for miles to matches because we couldn't afford any transportation. In spite of all that, our players were passionate, and we started winning. Then, as my brother's profile grew in America and around the world, the media came looking for his African relatives.

Eventually the press found me in my slum. My new notoriety was a blessing and a curse. Many people presume I have a direct line to the White House, but I don't. I've only met my big brother twice and have spoken to him just once since the election, to say congratulations. Still, because of our connection, I managed to pull in funds from philanthropists to support the work of the youth group. I raised enough money to buy the team gold and green uniforms—with their own numbers on the back. Last fall, Obama's Champs won the Nairobi Super League—a feat that, just a couple of years back, would have been unthinkable for a team from the slums. With the sponsorship I've attracted because of my last name, we can now afford to take buses all across Kenya for matches.

I still live in one of Africa's biggest slums, along with some 4.5 million others. We have little or no access to health care, no welfare, and no free schooling. The average income is less than $5 a day—and that's for those who find work as servants, taxi drivers, or garbage collectors. For the rest, there is nothing. My brother has risen to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world. In Kenya I hope to be a leader among the poorest, most powerless people on earth—the people of the ghetto.

Hope—it's an idea my brother talked about a lot. But it was only recently that I learned again what it means to feel the true spirit of that word. Here, a little goes a long way.

Obama's memoir, Homeland, was co-written with Damien Lewis.







" My dear friends, if God loved us so much, we too should love one another." St. John 4:11-18.