Love can only be attracted

A friend sent me this story on this Christmas day that I’d like to share it with you:

There once lived a king.  He was a king, but he was more than a king.  He was THE king, the king of kings.  He was incredibly rich.  He was enormously powerful.  His realm of influence stretched far beyond the horizons.  

Other kings would send him very expensive gifts, even though not all of them liked him.  No one wanted to make him angry.  Because all he had to do was speak and, at once, it was done.

He was rich and powerful.  He was also very good.  He was wise and just.  This king knew his subjects well.  He knew where they lived and what they did.  He would often venture out from his castle in his royal carriage, so he could see his people at their work and at their play.  

One day, he was looking around and he saw a young woman.  She was at work taking care of goats.  He asked some others about her and found out that she lived in a tiny cottage with her mother.  She and her mother were very poor.  Her father had been dead for some time.  Sometimes in the evenings she would sit in front of her cottage and play a wooden flute for the children in her village.  She loved the children and they loved her.

Well, the king, this king of kings, fell in love with this lowly young woman.  He wanted to marry her and to make her his queen.  But he also wanted her to love him.

Of course, the young woman knew that there was a king, a king above all kings, and she was grateful for what he did for everyone.  But she had no idea that this king loved her.  There were so many other women in the kingdom – beautiful, rich, talented women.  He could marry any one of them.  She was poor and plain.  Yet, for reasons he could not explain, he loved her.  He loved her because of who he was.  And he wanted her to love to love him.

The question was – how could that happen?  What could he do?  The king called together the wisest in his court to get their advice.  He told them of his love for this young woman.  He didn’t tell them who she was.  He only told them she was poor.

One of them piped up, “Congratulations your majesty!  How wonderful that you have finally chosen a queen!  We shall send messengers to the young woman and order her to come to the castle that she might become queen!”

 “No,” said the king.  “Soldiers I command; servants I order; all my subjects obey my decrees.  But this woman I love.  I can’t order her to love me.  I don’t know that she would be happy with me.  If I ordered her to be my wife, she could resent me the rest of her life.”

Another stepped forward and said, “Your majesty, then we must set out to win her love for you.  We shall send her gifts…yes, gifts beyond her wildest dreams!  We will build a great house for her.  We will send her servants.  She can have everything she ever wanted.  Why, she’ll be so grateful, she’ll just have to love you!”

Now the king became angry.  “Are you suggesting that I buy her love?  That I bribe her?  Every time she would look at the gifts, she would feel obligated to love me.  Or, worse, that she actually deserved my love.  

 “My love for her is free and undeserved.  I don’t want her to feel obligated to love me.  I don’t want to deceive her into thinking that she deserves my love.  That is not true love and will not win her love.  I cannot force her to love me by power or by price.”

 At this all of the king’s advisers fell silent.  So, he dismissed them.  After some time of thinking on his own, the king decided what he would do.  He took off his crown and his royal robes and set them aside.  He put on the clothes of poor peasant and dropped a few small coins in his pocket.  

Then, in the middle of the night, he left through the back door of the castle.  He went to the village where the young woman lived.  He begged for a place to stay.  No one would take him in, so he slept in a barn with animals.  The only job he could get was the lowest job – a goat herder.  Because people didn’t know him, and maybe because they could sense something different about him, they laughed at him.

In the evening, he went with the children to listen to the young woman play the flute.  That is how he got to know her.  Then, he offered to help her.  He helped her with the goats.  He did small things to fix up their cottage.  When her mother became sick, he brought her soup. 

Then he waited.  He waited and waited for a sign of her love – not merely of her gratitude, nor of her respect, nor of her admiration, nor of her friendship, but of her love.  At times, he became very sad and discouraged.  He wondered if she would ever love him.  He spent many long and lonely nights.  But at last joy came to him when he discovered that the poor young woman did indeed love him.

He asked her to marry him and she consented.  When her neighbors found out, they scolded her.  “He’s so poor!  He has no prospects!  He doesn’t even herd goats very well!”

But she simply said, “He loves me and I love him.  He wants me to be his wife and this is enough for me.”

Then he told her, “I live in another place not far from here.  I want you and your mother to come live with me there, but I need to go first and get it ready for you.”

He went back to his castle.  Then he returned in order to marry her according to the customs of her people.  Then, together, they walked to the castle.  To her great surprise, they strolled right through the gates and the guards did not stop them.  She was surprised again when others came up to her husband and bowed to him.  She was most surprised when he invited her to take a seat on the throne next to him.  But, because of how he had loved her, she was always amazed, but she was never surprised by his love.

And every evening she would sit at the castle gate and play her flute for all the children of the kingdom who would gather there.  And her audience always included the king.

Posted via email from The Garden of Heart