merinnor

A man went to trim his hair and beard. As always happens, he and the barber chatted about this and that, until - commenting on a newspaper article about street kids - the barber stated:

- As you can see, this tragedy shows that God doesn’t exist.

- How?

- Don’t you read the papers? So many people suffer, abandoned children, there’s so much crime. If God existed, there wouldn’t be so much suffering.

The customer thought for a moment, but his haircut was nearly finished, and he decided not to prolong the conversation. They returned to gentler topics, the job was done, the customer paid and left.

However, the first thing he saw was a tramp, with several days of beard, and long tangled hair. Immediately, he returned to the barber’s shop and said to the man who had served him:

- You know something? Barbers don’t exist.

- What do you mean, don’t exist? I’m here, and I’m a barber.

- They don’t exist! - insisted the man. - Because if they did, there wouldn’t be people with such longs beards and such tangled hair as I’ve just witnessed up on the corner.

- I can guarantee that barbers do exist. But that man has never come in here.

- Exactly! So, in answer to your question, God exists, too. It just so happens that people don’t go to Him. If they did, they would be more giving, and there wouldn’t be so much misery in the world.

Paulo Coelho