Apprentice: Walking the Way of Christ

by Steve Chalke

Two men, deep in conversation, walked down a bustling city street. One is at home, the other is visiting from the countryside. Passing a tree, the visitor suddenly stopped. ‘Can you hear that?’ he asked as pedestrians squeezed and bumped past them. ‘Hear what?’ his friend replied. ‘The cricket singing. It must be in the tree.’ He leant with one ear leaning towards the tree to tune into the source of the song. ‘There’s no cricket, it’s in your head!’ the city worker exclaimed, as a woman walked by shouting into her phone. ‘And, even if there were, you’d never be able to hear it over the noise of all these people and this traffic.’ The visitor’s friend laughed and walked on. But, as he did so, the visitor pulled a small coin from his pocket and let it drop to the ground. The coin hit the pavement and quietly rolled to a rest. Intuitively his friend twisted his head round, glancing over his shoulder at the ground to search for the coin. At the same moment, perhaps twenty other pedestrians surreptitiously scanned the ground as they walked by. With a smile, the visitor looked at his friend and said, ‘You’re listening to the wrong tune.’