When Pigs Fly

I remember visiting one of those fifty percent off card shops. My wife was exploring Joanne’s store and I needed somewhere to spend time. I spent my time looking at statues of bears, clowns and angels. Later in my exploration of the card shop I discovered a unique coffee mug. Pink pigs with pink wings and red Converse high top tennis shoes were flying in a blue sky filled with quarter moons, Saturn planets, and round golden suns. Beneath the six flying pigs were large halves of pink planets with gray circles.

I showed my wife the mug, my new treasure, which was on sale for two dollars. She gave me the “not now” answer. During each of our treks to Joanne’s Fabrics I led Sharon to the card shop and pointed out my treasure. I collected enough “not nows” to fill a mythical dance cards, over a period of two years. I was amazed by the fact that the “when pigs fly” mug was still there. It was as if it was waiting for me to take it home. It seemed as if I would get the mug “when pigs fly.” However, on warm summer day, which was just right for pigs to fly, I heard the most wonder words resonating like a tabernacle choir in my waiting ears, “okay dear.” Those to delightful words sent joy tingling in my spine.

I took the mug and its flock of pink pigs home, washed it like the feet of a dear friend, and brewed delicious decaf coffee. I paused in a moment of reverent silence before filling it with Verona decaf. The two fingers beneath the thumb of my right hand gently wrapped themselves around the large white handle of the mug and its white rim met my lips. I took a sip of coffee and the ritual was completed.

The new metaphor for living was captured in the symbolic art work on the mug. The answer to the order of wet blanket nay-sayers soared in a sky filled four flying pink pigs. All my moments lacking vital yeses to new challenges and lofty goals were met by a mug of black coffee brimming with the answer and steaming hot with new passion for life. My voice resonated words of new resolve. Pigs do fly and soar freely in the beautiful blues skies of our imaginations where planets of possibilities orbit as they please and gravity gives way to weightlessness and sets the soul at ease.

We perpetuate the seasonal myths of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and frame them in story books with colorful images. While they may be heart warming and able to capture incentives for giving, they pale in the presence of the inspiration offered our imaginations by the metaphor of four flying pink pigs wearing red high top Converse tennis shoes. They are the Converse reply to Nike’s “You can dot it!” The very thought of pigs in space gives us feelings of new found freedom and grace. Perhaps, they, too, could be the stuff of story books with colorful images. A new season to celebrate with songs of new tomorrows and joyful tingling spines massaged by inspired imaginations could greet us with yes-filled answers for one and all. It is not true that seeing is believing, but rather imagining is becoming. Instead of cards with anemic greeting such as “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings,” we could send pulsing, heart racing thoughts such as “Pigs Fly” or “Pigs Soar.” Inside we may read, “And visions of red Converse high tops touching the sky, dance dangling from pigs that know how to fly. May all your hopes and dreams soar higher than high and may each and every goal become the stuff of great stories before you die.”

Madison Avenue could start a new trend and advertise everywhere that life is good before and after it ends. Miss Piggy could be a new spokesperson and wear new wings. She could begin with a karate chop and say, “Hi Yah!” to troublesome things, and dubious doubts that would never fly and alas a conversion of “Here’s mud in your eye!” Come hope and dreams, and yeses all in a row, now is the time to sprout your new piggy wings as off you go, click your red high top Converse heels together and shout, “There is no place like home.” It could be bigger than a Macey’s sale, bigger than a runner winning the Olympic gold after years of hitting the trail, as big as an innocent man being freed after years in jail. I challenge those gold makes all the rules to fly with pigs and stop being fools. I challenge you to get up and greet each new with a grand new slogan “My pigs are flying and I’m on my way. I know I can do it and I’ll tell you why; my pigs are soaring in a summer sky, with planets of possibilities on a day of imagination filled with delightful dreams.”

My muse today is a patient mug that waited two years to come home with me. After a long period of “not now” it finally had its day. The truth is that every flying pig should have its day. The four on my mug received an okay from my wife and each of their four yeses came home with me to stay. This mythical metaphor for our imaginations carries with it freedom and a passion for living and a whimsical muse filled with as much truth as the unbeliever’s regime of rational fiction. Each of us is left to embrace life and cleanse our souls from the dark shadows of doubts. We begin by embracing one yes to a hope or dream, or goal.

Robert Schuler built on Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive thinking and transformed it into Possibility Thinking. Robert earned his pink pig wings by transforming a humble start in an Orange County drive-in to a Crystal Cathedral worthy of all who dare to fly. He shared the story of a fifty seven year old out of shape janitor who found his first yes and trained for the Boston Marathon. After believing enough to train and shed his fat, he won the Boston Marathon’s first place ribbon for seniors and he kept running and collecting blue ribbons. I believe that Peale and Schuler, and the running senior should be knighted in “The Order of the Four Pink Flying Pig*’, or receive acclaim in the”Flying Pigs Hall of Fame.”