Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.

Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 9.

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading, A Pastry War, was written and read by Wyn Collier.

Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verses 3 to 9.

Frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person

than to listen to the song of fools.

Like the crackling of thorns under the pot,

so is the laughter of fools. This too is

meaningless. Extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart. The

end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly

provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.

A pastry war. Of all the foolish things that have led to nations going to war,

could a pastry be the worst of all?

In 1832, amid tensions between France and Mexico,

a group of Mexican army officers visited a French pastry shop in Mexico City

and sampled all the baker's goods

without paying. Though the details get complicated and other provocations compounded the troubles,

the result was the first Franco-Mexican war, known as the Pastry War, in which more than 300 soldiers died.

...