Prologue:  The Senseless Sparrow

There was a small sparrow.  She seemed placidly maternal.  She provided warmth for her eggs and she diligently guarded her nest.  After the hatchlings made an appearance, she busied herself with securing food for her young. 

One day, she flew by the nest of another mother who also happened to be flitting about searching for food. "Oh!" she thought to herself.  "Her babies are so much more beautiful than my own!  She admired their bald little heads and bulging eyes; listened to their cries for food and had a moment of illumination worthy of a sparrow's brain.  She would also begin to provide for them.

Each day she would furtively deliver small morsels of food to the other sparrow's children.  She seemed unaware that her own children seemed malnourished and their feathers rather sparse.  But the other mother's children?   The tufts of feather on their heads now looked like soft velvet.  Their small beaks were certainly beautiful.  And they shrieked with delight when she paid her visits. She began to believe in her own nobility.

Her own fledglings were feeble.  They were wont to remain and not leave the nest.  After two weeks, she flew into a rage and they were driven to the nearby branches of a tree.  For the next week she worked diligently to find the sparrow's of the other mother near their own nest and continued to bring them tasty morsels of bread crumbs and worms.

She scarcely noticed, when a week later, her own children were found huddled at the base of the mighty oak which she called home - deceased.

The next blog will be  "The Compassion Compact:  A Model of  Governance"