THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

 I've been thinking a lot about God and gardening metaphors recently, using them for a scene in a play I'm writing for the drama module of my MA. Nikki Salt's recent post Thorns (morethanwriters.blogspot.com) struck a cord and I offer following two stories, the results of my ponderings:

After supper, the disciples sat down with Jesus. And Peter, because he was the unofficial spokesman of the group on account of not being afraid to sound stupid, asked:

“Master? You know that story you told?”

“Yes?”

“The one about the Sower?”

“Yes?”

“What does it mean?”

Jesus frowned at Peter.

“You were there when I explained it earlier. You remember? Seed, good news, birds, weeds, the world, listening, applying etc. In fact, you asked what it meant then.”

“Yes, I know I did. But I’ve, we’ve been thinking since then. What does the explanation mean, Lord?”

“I’m not sure I quite follow.”

“It’s just got me, us a bit worried, all this talk of different parts of the garden where the seed lands. Which area am I? What if I’m the rocky soil? You did name me ‘Peter’. What if Andrew’s the path? Or Phillip’s the weed patch? I want to be the good soil, we all do, but what if we’re not? I don’t want to question your storytelling or teaching skill, Lord, but, well, it sort of smacks of predestination.”

Jesus looked around at all the disciples. The fear shone from their eyes. He put his arm around Peter’s shoulder.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Big Man. You all are. Remember the other story I told you, about the Vine? And how my Father is the…?”

“I know this one!” shouted Nathanael. “It’s gardener!”

“Exactly. Gardens always need work. Don’t you realise my Father is both capable and willing to protect vulnerable seed with netting, to sift out stones, and to do regular weeding? He’ll prune you back to make you stronger and he’ll dig in manure to make you more fruitful.

All you need is to be willing to put yourself in His hands.”

**********

There was an author who sat down and wrote all her ideas in a notebook.  

Some landed on the page but as the days passed and the pages filled and turned, the ideas were simply forgotten and not used.

Some of the ideas seemed full of potential, filling the author’s heart with excitement. But once she started working on them, she saw that they lacked substance or originality. So she didn’t develop them any further.

Others also had potential and the author started working on them straightaway. But, distracted by family needs and joys, work pressures, the latest Netflix series, and the need to exercise off the all the weight she’d gained eating cake, the writing became hard and the author despondent. It wasn’t their time and the ideas lay dormant, unfinished.

But some ideas grew, watered by the discipline of regularly turning up to write, and warmed by encouragement and feedback from fellow writers. They went on to become blog posts, poems, stories, sermons, articles, novels. They went out into the world where they blessed their readers and planted seeds of blessing: of hope, of rest, of encouragement, of laughter, of righting the world’s wrongs.

Some even became the seeds of new ideas for new writers, who sat down and them in a notebook…

Liz Manning lives in Cornwall and is doing a Creative Writing MA at Plymouth University, where she’s exploring fiction, poetry, and dramatic writing possibilities. She hopes to have something ready for publication (or exhibition) by the end of the academic year.

She blogs regularly at https://thestufflifeismadeofblog.wordpress.com/