This is a story I wrote while contemplating a specific incident. It was deeply symbolic for me at the time. Now I believe I should re-write or at least re-examine it but until I do, here it is.

Two horses were born in the woods. Their Father was a magnificent animal, lead horse of the pack. While they were still young, He went away. Most said He was dead. Three days later, He returned, to the surprise of some and the anger of others. He did great things, and others did great things in His name. The Father named the young horses the last time he set eyes on them. He called the older Kantor and the younger Gamora. After that, the Father left again, never to be seen, though His touch was all over the forest.

Kantor was always in a hurry. He even felt his name was too long, so he went by Kant. His brother wanted a nickname, too. He chose Gam. He considered his name a sinful waste of time. Both horses were pure white from head to hoof; not that you could tell. They were normally covered in sticks and brambles, with mud splashed high on their backsides. Their favorite place in all the forest was down in the dirt and mud. They were inseparable, doing everything together. They ate together; played together; worked together; sowed wild oats together; and ran all over the forest. Their Father had given them absolute free will. There was nothing they could not do and nowhere they could not go.

Except for the road.

The middle of the forest held a road running north to south; a narrow path with slippery slopes on both sides. It was the King’s Road and led to the Castle on the Hill. They were allowed on the road and had crossed it or travelled along it several times. But they avoided the road. It was boring and hard to stay on. They wanted no part of the narrow path leading to the great beyond.

One day, Kant and Gam were grazing by the road when they heard a ruckus. They looked up to see the biggest carriage they had ever imagined heading down the road towards them. It had an entourage of coachmen, footmen, and cavalrymen racing alongside it. But what commanded their attention were the six white horses pulling the carriage.

Neither of them had ever seen anything so regal and majestic. The bridles on their heads were jewel encrusted. Each had white plumes of shimmering feathers. The reins had jewels and were white, matching their manes. Even their hooves sparkled as they tread across the road carrying the King. Both horses watched with mouths agape as the stately animals went past. When it was around the bend and out of sight, Kant and Gam looked at each other and had the same simultaneous thought: “I want to be one of those horses.”

Asking around, they learned those horses had strict criteria to meet. Foremost, they had to be pure white, with no blemishes on their coats. That was easy, as they had great genes. While their mother was dappled and gray, their Father had been solid white. He had passed that on and made them white as snow. The horses also had to be disciplined. They had to train, eat right, sleep right, and act right. This was where Kant lost desire. He could not bring himself to do the right things. Gam wanted it bad. He saw a better life as a horse of the crown and worked hard until the day he could take the test.

Kant picked on Gam. While Gam stayed clean and straight, Kant kept up with his old ways. Kant would appear where Gam was training and show him how free he was. He neighed and laughed at Gam to show what Gam was losing.

Finally, the day came for Gam to take the test. He was not sure how to pass, but he had faith he would make it. His faith was in the King. Kant showed up for support, with his coat full of mud and thorns. Nothing Gam had studied or tried to learn helped him pass the test. Walking down the aisle between the animals that had made it, he trotted down to the front where he was told he had passed with flying colors. While Gam was unsure, others knew it had been through Grace.

As part of his matriculation, Gam walked through the narrow gate of the castle wall known only as the Eye of the Needle. He had to bend down, but on the other side was a sign that read “You Have Won Heaven.” At the end of the ceremony, he received a new name, Abel. As Abel, he only had to work one day a week. For the other six days, he was free to do what he wanted.

He still got to run in the forest and hang out with Kant, though they rarely did. Kant was uncomfortable with Gam seeing his clean living. Kant felt the disciplined lifestyle was a drag on his freedom and spur-of-the-moment way of life. To Abel, the old ways were dead. He was just as tempted to get in the mud and bushes, yet he did his best not to. Occasionally, he slipped and got dirty. Sometimes it was by accident; other times he knew he was wrong. The stable hands at the castle never complained about cleaning him. They did it without a word or with a condescending attitude. The few times Kant would hang out, he picked on Abel mercilessly about what Abel could or could not do.

For the rest of their lives, Kant lived the life of freedom and bragged about his ability to go wherever he wanted. While Abel lived his life walking, the same as Kant, going everywhere he went, and then the places Kant could not.

Explained

They say explaining a joke makes the joke less funny. Explaining writing is probably the same way.

The story begins with two horses, because it allows a direct comparison between two objects that take diverging paths. As brothers, it shows the closeness and a bond between the two that is inherent in all they do. This is not just two horses taken at random, one tall, one short, one fat, one skinny, one from a rich family, one from a poor family. This is a story of two horses that have the same background, come from the same flock, the same group, the same mother and the same Father. Said Father is not just any father, but The Father. He is the head of the pack, which “goes away” for a few days but returns. When He returns, He does some important work before going away again. Admittedly, my symbolism is weak here. The Father is symbolic of Jesus. It isn’t clear that when he left he died, and the biggest clue is the capitalization of the pronouns. There are a few more hints, such as His touch being all over the forest and later on the fact that He had passed along to both horses their perfectly white, unblemished bodies and their absolute free will. I chose Cantor simply for the ability to abbreviate it, Can’t. Gamora was more symbolic of the second twin city from Lot’s age. When you see the things the horses do, including sowing their wild oats, it is again referring to the sexual freedom practiced in those later devastated cities.

The road is the short and narrow way. It isn’t off limits, but when you are a horse of the forest enjoying your absolute freewill, nothing that restricts you comes across as very fun. The road is just that. It requires discipline and perseverance to stay on the road. Horses of the world do not want to conform to someone else’s rules; they want only what their hearts desire. In typical humanistic fashion, they have grown to rationalize whatever they want to do. But then they see the carriage. It carries the king, and is pulled and surrounded by those horses that not only choose the narrow path, but can stay on the narrow path. Christians along the path appear to have it all together. Outsiders view Christians in their element sometimes with a “yeah, but they already have it all” attitude as a defense for why they can’t just become like them. This is again a very humanistic attempt at self-justification. Proving to no one but themselves why they are right. When a Christian has it all together, is doing the right thing, and is being rewarded for it, the world is envious.

The horses learn that the first requirement they must meet is one that they have no control over, and that their Father has already taken care of for them. They cannot make themselves blemish free or white from the top of their head to the bottom of their hooves. To further stress it, their mother is shown as other than, which is unfortunate, but it served the story well. After that, it becomes a matter of what the horse does. The issue is by grace alone (the gift from the Father), through faith alone, and is not because of what we do. Now, the paradoxical side of the matter is that once we realize grace has saved us; our faith begins to enable and require us to do works. The works don’t get us there, but we have to do the works because salvation makes us desire to do them. Lots of times we feel we have to be saved, take the grace given, do the works, and then somewhere down the road get the benefits of the effort. Again, this is misleading, because our “effort” had nothing to do with it, but that is what we justify to ourselves in our humanistic manner.

As a reward for being told “You have won heaven,” a point I neglected to add but will in a later re-write. This, of course, being abbreviated YHWH and alludes back to where Gam got his new nickname, Abel, the Old Testament. This name served several purposes; one was to again cement the bonds of brotherly attachment as seen by Cain and Abel. Another was to show that Abel was now dead to Cant, another point not very clear in the story. The ultimate reason ended up also tying to the nickname given to Cant because one horse clearly can’t, while the other is very able.

Abel’s work schedule shows he needs merely to give one day to the King for service to get the rest off. But his discipline won’t allow him to return to his old ways of sinning and getting dirty. Sometimes he slips into the mucky mire of sin, and when he does, the care he gets in re-cleansing is guilt-free and non-judgmental. The ending balance of the story shows that while they both believed the lie of being free and able to do anything at the beginning of the story, only the one who took the steps to fall in line with where the Father wants us to be is able to truly take advantage of the truth and full measure of grace. Paradoxically, by giving up what is perceived to be freedom, Abel was able to gain not only more than it cost him, but what he never could have imagined before.