Short Story: The Law of Gleaning, in the past, was not construed as stealing.

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Background information to this story: In the Christian Bible, it is said that a part of the farmer's grain field was left uncropped, or unharvested, for the poor people. These poorer folk, without farms of their own, and who were not land-owners, could then come onto the owner's farm, and they could "glean" these crops for themselves, by working these unfarmed parts of the field. In this way, they could work, and harvest, "their" own part of the crop, rather than just being given straight charity, from the farmers who owned the fields, by them giving them some already harvested milled products. This gleaning law gave the poor people a chance to fend for themselves, and to feel good that they had done the work for themselves too. The right to glean was given free of charge by every landowner, to any poor person, to crop these parts of his harvest, left unharvested. The Gleaning Law is not really in use in modern-day society. Our story. A modern-day gleaner, who is really a thief. Greff Jernley was an office worker for a very large Government agency. Pens and writing pads were provided to him, and he could go to the storeroom, whenever he needed a fresh supply of them, because he had run out of them in his usage of them at his desk. This guy was purportedly a good Christian. He knew the Bible backwards, and he could quote from any passage, to prove his point. He attended his local church every Sunday, and he took up the collection, there, as he was their treasurer there too, being good with figures. The thing was though, he had a bad habit of using the Bible for his own purposes, and changing the meanings, or bending them, to suit his own needs. He would pilfer extra notepads and pens from his work office, and bring them home to his house, for his private use there. He would even hand them out to his kids to use, explaining to them, that he could do this, as it came under the law of gleaning. He was not stealing them, just gleaning them from his workplace, he told them. He would then quote the bible to them to back this up. A takeaway gleaned moral from this tale. Love never gleans anything from anyone, but only gives, and yet we can glean all from love freely. Everything else gleaning does not apply to, unless such a law is in place in society, which in present times, it is not. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com The pillar of society, often has a crusty interior, rusted away by greed, and selfishness.