GRAFTON — Far above the village, high in the snow-laden hills, a crone walked under cover of pines and hemlocks, maples, birch, and ash.
The hills had always been a refuge for her, but in recent weeks, rumbles of thunder had been rising from the village, shaking its foundations.
It was the sound of lawmakers trying to move the church closer to the state.
The crone did not understand it. There were serious problems to be solved - poverty, discrimination and other injustices, the cost of wars, and the desecration of Mother Earth - yet still the male lawmakers and a few of the females yammered on about “moral values” as they sought to deprive women of sovereignty over their own lives.
The group took counsel from bishops and pastors and cloaked their arguments with claims that women's rights impinged upon their “religious freedoms.” They seemed to believe that their “moral values” were superior to the values of those who disagreed with them.
It had ever been thus.
Since olden times, there had been people who professed to know the one and only righteous way. Those who envisioned a different way were subjected to inquisitions and condemned as heathens, infidels, blasphemers and heretics. They were tortured and killed. Of course, nothing so extreme was occurring in the village, but the thread of history, though frayed, was still intact.
Many lawmakers did not know or care about history. Any knowledge that stood outside the parameters of their own religiosity was derided as “secular” and shunned. Those who possessed such knowledge and aspired to use it for the common good were denounced as “elitists.”
* * *
The crone had led a peripatetic life. In her travels she had met many people who were well-educated and had never gone to school.
They were sparked by insatiable curiosity, a desire to listen and learn, and a willingness to grapple with ideas that challenged what they thought they knew. A diploma on the wall did not necessarily signify an education, nor did a person's job in fields, factories, or mines indicate a lack of one.
The crone had become leery of the word “belief,” even when it spewed from her own lips.
Belief so often trumped reason that it was beginning to pose a danger to civilization. It appeared to the crone that many lawmakers and their followers were engaged in a celebration of ignorance. They reveled in it. They rolled in it the way a dog rolls in mud or scat and trots home proud.
The crone was not certain of much, but she had seen no evidence that ignorance solved problems.
She walked slowly, following a deer path. Quite suddenly, she was startled by a hemlock twig that fell to the ground in front of her and burst into flames. She was more startled when the twig spoke.
“Crone, you must leave the forest and go out to gather shoes.”
“Shoes?”
“Yes; it's not nearly as daunting a task as parting the seas.”
“Where might I procure these shoes?”
“Go to the homes of your girlfriends and ask for donations. Any shoes will do. They needn't be in good repair. Once you've collected them, go forth to the chambers of the lawmakers and scatter them on the floor. The more disarray, the better.”
“But how will I gain entry?” the crone asked. “There are security guards and alarm systems.”
“Crone, have you looked at yourself lately? You are long past childbearing years and therefore virtually invisible. Your life is of no concern to the lawmakers. Even if they acknowledged your existence, they would assume that because you can no longer reproduce, you no longer have sex either. You don't, do you?”
“Don't what?” asked the crone.
“Have sex.”
The crone arched an eyebrow. She considered stomping on the twig and reducing him to ashes and then thought better of it. When it came to problem solving, violence was no more effective than ignorance.
“Listen, burning twig. I don't care if you're a messenger sent by all the gods who ever were. My private life is not your business. Nor theirs.”
“Forgive me; I didn't mean to transgress a boundary,” the twig said. “I was trying to assure you that because of your invisibility you may enter those chambers without fear of detention or arrest. Oh - another important detail. Anything you hold in your hands will also be invisible.”
* * *
The crone felt a little foolish taking directions from a twig, but she had not been on an adventure for a long while, so she left the hills and set off to collect shoes.
She traveled from house to house with a large feed sack, and donors stuffed it with sandals, high-top sneakers, come-here-baby stilettos, running shoes, ballet slippers, and an assortment of boots, including a pair of tall rubber boots that a farmer had worn in her cow barn for many moons.
Each donor attached a tag to her gift that read, “Walk a mile.”
When the crone arrived at the chamber door, she strode past the guards and entered the inner sanctum where the lawmakers sat.
The twig had spoken the truth. No one noticed her. Her invisibility gave her a sense of freedom and power.
She walked to the center of the room and turned the feed sack upside down, scattering the shoes and boots all over the floor. Then she returned to watch from the doorway, and derived great glee from the pandemonium.
Several lawmakers rushed to the floor and read the writing on the tags.
“Walk a mile?” one of them said. “What the hell does that mean?”
A lone woman was bold enough to make a suggestion.
“I think it means, 'Walk a mile in our shoes.'”
“We can't walk in these shoes. They're women's shoes! ” blustered the most prominent lawmaker.
The air in the chamber was rank with the stench emanating from the farmer's old barn boots. Several lawmakers felt faint. A few passed out, keeled over, and were taken to the hospital for resuscitation.
They were treated immediately because they had comprehensive health insurance.
Within an hour, they returned to their chamber, fully recovered and perhaps born again, but no more enlightened than they'd been before the crone's visitation.