Parables are fantastic. Parables are a fantastic way to
learn "line upon line." A story can change meaning for you from one day to the
next. Parables are symbols in action.
Recently I had a bit of a "revelation"
come to me, through the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan. It came as I
pondered on "uncleanness" in the Biblical tradition. It occurred to me that one
reason why the priest would have passed by the wounded, beaten man, was because
he couldn't be certain the man wasn't already dead. If the priest had touched a
dead man, he would have become unclean, and wouldn't have been able to
participate in his temple service until he became "clean" again. The priest did
not stop to help the wounded man because he had "temple stuff" to do, and
wouldn't allow another's uncleanness to come between him and God. He missed the
point, however, that "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these,
ye have done it unto me." His concern for becoming "dirty" prevented him from
being with God. After some pondering that, I found new ways to apply that to my
life, and it taught me things.
Because parables. Parables and symbols alike,
though repeated with the same words or images, time and time again, can mean
different things on any given day, often with meanings changing to help answer
our own questions of the soul. I, personally, find great comfort in these
symbols and symbolic stories.
The other day I was watching a lecture that
included a lot of Egyptian symbology. (One of my favorites.) I found truths in
it, and later tried to explain something that had been quite a beautiful
revelation to me to my husband. He was polite, but obviously it wasn't as mind
blowing/life altering for him as it was for me. Because my husband doesn't speak
symbols.
He doesn't speak symbols?! Symbols are what God uses!!! Parables are
what Jesus taught with!!!
Maybe he'll learn to like them, I told myself. Maybe
if he studied enough, learned enough about world history, cultures, historical
theology, etc, etc, he would come to like them too. Maybe his ability to find
value in the symbolical aspects of religious learning is something that would
come with time, with... spiritual maturity.
Because that's what Jesus used.
As
always, I'm a proud person. It's not unusual for me to automatically assume I'm
right. Fortunately, I have a very patient husband who knows this about me, and
allows ME the space to learn my own "line upon line."
Today I figured it out.
All of us are different. In the one brief year where I studied Elementary
Education, we studied learning styles. I, myself, am a visual and kinetic
learner. There's auditory, and reading/writing too. Are any of these learning
styles wrong? Are any of them "better" than the others? Maybe some of them are
easier in a given learning environment, but no one is "superior" to the others.
God created all of us, and I believe God created us as individuals, in
omnipotent wisdom. I also believe God created a multitude of environments for us
children to learn in - Scripture, Prophets, Rituals. Who am I to judge if
scripture speaks to my husband more than stories or symbols? Maybe God created
Ritual and Isaiah to teach people like me, and had his prophets speak bluntly
and with the plainness of the Book of Mormon for people like my husband.
Is my
learning style better? For me, it is. Is his best? For him, it is.
Frankly, it doesn't
matter if Creation stories have been told in ancient temples, by differing
groups of people, with intricate parallels to each other and our own religious tradition, for thousands of years, and isn't
that symbology beautiful. In the long run, my knowing that stuff doesn't benefit or change
anything about my day to day actions in a way that is superior to people like my husband, who doesn't care about
that stuff, but is already living a Christian life from doing from what he's learned from reading scriptures.
All of us are different, and we all learn to draw closer to God in the context that fits
our understandings best.
Because Jesus taught in parables, but He ALSO taught the
Sermon on the Mount.
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