Dayhoff Soundtrack: A MOUSETRAP -No Concern of Ours

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

A MOUSETRAP -No Concern of Ours

(A great version of the Pastor Martin Niemoeller quote – see below)

A mouse looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package; what food might it contain? He wasaghast to discover that it was a mouse trap!

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning, “There is a mouse trap in the house, there is a mouse trap in the house.”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr.Mouse, I can tell you this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me; I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mouse trap in the house.”

“I am so very sorry Mr. Mouse,” sympathized the pig, “but there is nothing I can think of to do about it. Surely someone else willstep in to help.”

The mouse turned to the cow, who replied, “Like wow, Mr. Mouse, amouse trap; am I in grave danger, Duh?”

So the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected to factthe farmer’s mouse trap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like thesound of a mouse trap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed tosee what was caught.

In the darkness, she did not see that it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer’s wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital.

She returned home with a fever. Now everyone knows you treat afever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to thefarmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.

His wife’s sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well, in fact, she died, and so many people came for her funeral the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat.

So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when the least of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

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"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists, & I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Pastor Martin Niemoeller, German clergyman (1892-1984) who opposed Nazism.

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