Parable of the Sower, the Seed, and the Ground

He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 

“Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil.  And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” (Mark 4: 1-9)

The Cosmos is an information system. We are embodyings of the Cosmos. We generally do not think of ourselves as such. We often shut ourselves off and wander around in isolation -- isolated protoplasmic blobs. No information, no knowledge, no understanding flows through. We have eyes only for ourselves. 

At other times, we enclose ourselves in social friendship. The height and width and depth of understanding depends upon the awareness base and the focus of the group. The consciousness state of some groups is “rocky ground” with no “depth of soil.” The focus of some groups can be quite thorny. No new awareness can take hold.

With these two ways of being, isolated closedness or participation in social groups with no depth of soil, even the birds , perhaps especially the birds, receive greater awareness and understanding.

With other social friendships, awareness expands and the ever flowing information, knowledge, and understanding from the Cosmos that births us finds good ground and a good crop of “grain” is produced. 

The seed is here, is always here. We ourselves create the ground of closed rigidity or of open receptive awareness.

Depth Charges

"Using many parables like these, he spoke the word to them, so far as they were capable of understanding it. He would not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples when they were alone." (Mark 4: 13-14)

You don't want to throw your pearls into the hog pen. Or as my grandfather used to say: For some people you have to let the rooster peck 'em. Understandings back then were given in more earthy language. With vivid imagery. These images were like depth charges that settled in you, often with slow motion explosions that had even greater later impact. They were like small movies you took with you revealing deeper understandings as time went on. Imagination is more powerful than symbolic logic.

Just as today, people in Jesus' time had their attention focused on various things. Attention is like a flashlight. Some keep attention shining on internal yak-yak and go through the day virtually unseeing, blinded by their own light, caught in a visual hologram mistaken for Reality. No need to reveal deep secrets to them. They wouldn't hear anyway. A parable might entertain them enough or mystify them enough that they could chew on it later. Maybe.

Others would give their attention for maybe a half hour or so and then their mind turned to other things. A parable would stay with them like a piece of spiritual food stuck in their questing teeth.

And so on. Picture Jesus standing in the center of concentric rings of attention. He wanted to speak in a manner producing maximum impact. Only those closest to him in the attentional ring would receive direct explanations. But everything people needed to know was in the parable.

He "spoke the word to them, so far as they were capable of understanding it." Capability requires capacity, room. If they had no room in the In, they had no room to shelter the Christ child yet to be born.

What Is A Parable?

A parable is a teaching story with many levels of meaning. Meister Eckhart, the mystic-theologian-philosopher of the 12th and 13th century thought the interpretations of a parable were limitless.

Traditionalists maintain a four level distinction.

The literal (historical) points toward the past. The allegorical points toward the future; new characters are substituted for the characters in the parable. The tropological points downward to the present moment and provides the moral teaching of the parable. The anagogic interpretation points upward to the spiritual or mystical sense.

I predict my interpretations of the parables to be presented will mostly be anagogic though I will not ignore the others. Now that I think of it, I will toss away these four categories right now.

I will, like always, listen to the inner voice and write what I hear.