The Parable of the Rainmaker and the Owner of the Camel

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, what’s next for Colorado?  They’ve had fires.  They’ve had floods.  Are locusts next?”

Josh spoke thus:

A rainmaker was standing on a desert dune, looking at a camel.

“This will be your gift when you bring us rain,” the camel’s owner said to the rainmaker.

“I’m on vacation,” the rainmaker said to the owner of the camel, “I’m not making rain.”

“A rainmaker can’t choose to make rain or not to make rain,” the owner of the camel said, “You’re either a rainmaker or you’re not a rainmaker.  If you’re a rainmaker, you make rain.”

“I don’t have my tools,” the rainmaker said.

“The tools do not make the rainmaker,” the owner of the camel said, “It is the rainmaker who gives the tools their power.”

“I’m here to see the desert,” the rainmaker said, “If it rains, there will be no desert.”

“I live in the desert,” the owner of the camel said, “I see the desert every day, and believe me, it loses its charm.”

“The desert is beautiful,” the rainmaker said.

“You know what’s beautiful?” the owner of the camel said, “Food.  You know what else is beautiful?  A bath.  And what else?  Cool drinks.”

“Your people have developed a wonderful culture in the desert,” the rainmaker said, “You are self reliant, you are generous, your morals are simple and unambiguous.”

“Our morals are simple and unambiguous?” the owner of the camel said, “Our morals are survival.  You know what’s better than morals?  Hamburgers.  You know what’s better than self reliance?  A Mercedes.  You know what’s better than a wonderful culture?  A wonderful tree-shaded garden with fruit trees and fountains.

“You’ve pigeonholed us in this nomadic slot, this stupid, arid, pennyless, nomadic wilderness.  Did you ask us if we wanted to live in this stupid, arid, pennyless, nomadic wilderness?  Let us out of our pigeonhole.  Take the camel.  Make it rain.”

The rainmaker shrugged and said, “You asked for it.”

The rainmaker raised both hands to the sky and began to chant in an ancient tongue.  Seemingly out of nowhere, clouds formed in the sky and it began to rain.  The rain fell in sheets, and the land, unable to soak up all the water, became a churning current, a river that swept the owner of the camel away to be drowned.

The rainmaker sighed and looked at the camel.

“What am I going to do with a camel?” the rainmaker said.