The Figuring Post

A good story teller always leaves the listener with something to chew on after the telling is done.  We all have our favorite story tellers.  Two of mine are Flannery O'Connor and Wendell Berry.  Jesus was also a pretty good story teller.  If His listeners had seats on which to sit, they surely would have been sitting on the edge. His stories and parables often seem to come spontaneously from things of the present moment and it is easy to see people leaving shaking their heads and talking among themselves.  An old Episcopalian priest friend often said that the unwritten word at the end of the parables and stories of Jesus was, "Go figure."

 

I think my friend had it right.  We do not simply walk away from a story like the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  We start second guessing the ending, or more likely, we spend time looking for ourselves.  Any serious reading of the gospels brings us an awareness that Jesus wants us to put on our thinking cap as we delve into His teachings through stories and parables.  Thinking is good for the soul.  One word of caution I often have given to people who were seekers was "Don't let someone else do your thinking."  There are always some people perceived as spirtual leaders who want to control others by telling them how to think.  Beware.

 

Each one of us is exactly the person God has made us to be.  We are individually shaped and influenced by our experiences and circumstances.  We are also shaped by the way God is choosing to interact with us through the presence of the Holy Spirit.  What is obvious and significant to one of us may not be so to another.  The important thing is learning to be in the presence of God as we read those teachings of Jesus on the way to the "Figuring Post."