Original Parable: Unconnected Bricks


There was a little town that had been decimated by some recent storms.  The people in this town were tough.  Years ago they had been through a storm that leveled there town and they had stayed and rebuilt.  Then another storm came even more powerful than the last one.  Some people moved out of the town and went to somewhere safer.  But these people decided that they weren’t going anywhere.  Maybe they were too stubborn to go, maybe they liked it too much there, or maybe they were just plain crazy.  Don’t know.

This latest storm tore through the center of town and knocked down buildings.  It looked like a bomb had gone off.  The school was leveled, the bank, the post office, and many of the homes were destroyed.  So the people of the town decided that they were going to rebuild once again.  They didn’t have the money to just buy all new stuff.  So it was decided that every week they would meet together and bring with them one brick each.  They did this, religiously, for several weeks.  Their pile of bricks was growing and they were all proud of it.  Some people would stare at that growing pile of bricks with amazement.  

“Wow!  Look at how well things go when we are all working together.”  One guy shouted.

“The bricks aren’t all the same color.  It would look nicer if they were the same color.”

“I have brought a brick every single week and I know that a couple of my neighbors have not brought a brick every week.”

“There are only two people in your family.  I have 8 in mine, so we are actually bringing in way more bricks than you.”

It got worse and worse for this little town.  Pretty soon all they had was a decimated town square with a huge pile of bricks in the middle of it.  The storms couldn’t destroy the town but they didn’t seem to be able to stand up against the furious force of working together.  After the pile of bricks became an eye sore they decided to hire a dump truck to come in and remove the brick pile.

You see, a pile of bricks that aren’t interconnect are useless and need to be taken to the trash.

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