A House is Built

Thanks very much to Margaret Fraser for posting this reading to the Guide Mailing List!

Source: "Fun Around the World" by F.W. Keene (sorry, no publication date or ISBN available).

Once upon a time, not any special time, just once upon, there were some children. They lived in a village - no special village, just a village. Each lived in his own home and played in his own yard. Sometimes the children played nicely with each other. And sometimes they forgot to play nicely and they quarrelled. Now and then the children would throw stones at each other. They would be hurt, often very badly.

One day one of the children said, "We are being very silly. It isn't fun to quarrel and be angry and to throw stones and hurt each other. There must be a better way to settle arguments." Another child said, "I think we are foolish too. Why don't we talk things over instead? Words are better than stones. But where shall we talk?" The children thought and thought. Finally someone said, "Let's build a house where we can go to talk." The children all agreed that this was a fine idea and they ran to their yards. Each chose the finest stone he could find and brought it to the place on which they had decided to build.

Now, the stones were not all the same shape and they were not all the same size, and some were weaker than the others. But, as the children began to build the house, they found that this did not matter. The stones fit together, each in its own place. And as the children built and built and the house grew taller, they saw that the smaller, weaker stones were made stronger because they were helped by the larger stones. When the house was finished, the children went inside. They sat in a circle and nodded their heads and promised each other that they would come to the house and talk things over together when they didn't agree about something. At least we shall try very hard, they said. And the children smiled at each other and said, "This is a much better way to use the stones than throwing then at each other."

And so, in much the same way, the United Nations came to be. The grown-ups from many nations saw that something needed to be done to settle arguments between countries. They agreed that it would be much better to talk things over together. Because they needed a place to talk, they built a fine big building where everyone could meet. Then they promised each other to try to settle their different ideas with words. And they decided to help each other too, when anyone needed help. They called themselves the United Nations because united means together, and nations means people. People together, working with each other and for each other and for each other to make a better world for everyone.

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