The Elephant in the Room

Yesterday was a dreary, rainy day though I did go out when it was merely misting. I watched some TV: The Ricky Gervais show in which 3 characters have inane conversations that are illustrated by cartoons. One topic was trite sayings that made no sense to them.

1. A stitch in time saves nine
2. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
3. There is an elephant in the room

Of the three, the first makes the most sense though on first reading, it implies that someone is sewing time. And why nine? It really doesn't rhyme with time. But quite the opposite of this adage is followed here as in not fixing the brakes when they first squeal but waiting for total failure or the ignoring of the curling shingles. We are waiting for that hole to develop in the roof. I did try to make a few 'stitches' in Naomi's life but we all see how that turned out.

The show had much fun with the second showing an occupant chucking stones at his own walls and watching them break. They developed alternative sayings such as People who live in glass houses shouldn't walk around in the nude and People who live in glass houses need to answer the door. Why? They can see for themselves that you are in. The saying is an obvious off-shoot of what Jesus purportedly said: Judge not lest ye be judged or more graphically: Let he without sin cast the first stone. Somehow the glass house was added later.

In the Old Testament, the prescribed method of execution for unbecoming behavior seems to be stoning. So instead of just one or a few individuals being in charge of capital punishment, the whole community was encouraged to take part throwing stones until the sinner died. Jesus's new requirement that the stoners themselves should be sinless was big news. Bigger news: the sinner could repent. Theoretically, true 'Christians' as in those following what Jesus said, shouldn't be doing any judging at all, but alas, that isn't the case.

There is an elephant in the room isn't much of an adage, more just a statement. An elephant carries more weight than, let's say, there is a chipugpin ( aka Dakota) in the room or a bee in the room (cue Naomi screaming). It is so obvious that it is there that noone dare comment on it or be accused of stating the obvious. But the elephant is there and it's capable of doing serious damage so it probably shouldn't be ignored. But what can you do? The elephant really will be hard to remove from the room and might fight back. Therefore it will be best all around just to ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist even though it is staring you in the face.

There are a few elephants in my room.