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Metaphors and parables
A Christian Science friend and I were talking about metaphors that help us deal with the challenges we all face—challenges from the small negative ripples in thought to the crashing waves of discord that would try to engulf and undermine individuals and the world.
He mentioned how on ocean trips, he is able to enjoy every moment of riding over the waves. He rejoices in it and feels a great sense of resiliency and buoyancy. And this provides him with a metaphor—a metaphor that helps him as he rides over the waves that appear in his life.
Now, I’m an avid cyclist. So as my friend was speaking, I suddenly realized that riding a bicycle up steep hills or mountains—long or short routes—is something that provides me with similar results. The persistence to keep going, hill after hill, climb after climb, for miles on end, as well as the recognition that the ability and strength to do so come from God, always carries me forward to see some amazing views at the summit or to experience some really fast and exciting descents. All good stuff!
Knowing that spiritual persistence and strength come from God enables me to crest over those mountainous hills or waves that we all experience. Waves that would attempt to consume us with fear and helplessness. Or waves that would seek to distract us from the awareness of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God—an awareness that always lifts us above and beyond the nothingness and powerlessness of false, mortal beliefs. An awareness that lovingly reassures us that we are indeed God’s beloved children. Always will be!
Jesus used metaphors and parables to impart spiritual concepts to his audiences, to convey ideas that spiritually resonate and bring healing. A stanza in Mary Baker Eddy’s poem “Christ My Refuge,” alludes to the Master’s parable of the man who built his house on the rock:
Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock,
Upon Life’s shore,
’Gainst which the winds and waves can shock,
Oh, nevermore! (Poems, p. 12
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Those words also help me to see that in being grounded upon divine Life’s, God’s, shore—a shore that is entirely spiritual—we are never really touched by the beliefs of mortal thinking.
What about you? What metaphors and parables are speaking to you?
—Ken Girard, Arlington, Massachusetts, US