​​​   One warm and clear evening at twilight, I decided to take a walk in the forest.  As it grew darker I followed the edge of the forest never daring to venture in the quickly darkening woods. Peering through the trees in front of me I came upon an unexpected hillside meadow. The meadow rolled from side to side blooming with bright yellow buttercups, and dandelions, framed between Islands of clover in every shade of green.  
 
  As I ventured up the small hill, dandelions burst out from under my feet thousands of life giving tethered pods that gracefully rode the steady evening breeze.

 

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  When I arrived at the top of the hill, there appeared a perfectly placed boulder  rising from the earth in a semi circular pattern.  At it’s center lay a barrel shaped crevice with it’s edges conveniently weathered. 

In surprising comfort,  I sat.

 

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  Gazing back down the hill to the forests edge, the fading sunlight softly illuminated thousands of tiny white fluffs of dandelion seeds that followed me up the hill hanging onto the up flowing breeze.

 

I watched as they danced about and safely parachuted down to claim their earthly womb and the promise of birth.  
 
  I then remembered that I heard a man called Christ once taught that when a farmer sowed his seeds of grain, they where at the mercy of the sudden winds. Some would fall upon the hard rocks and would be scorched by the sun. Others fell upon shallow earth and quickly sprouted. But without good rooting, withered and died. Others fell among weeds and became like the weeds around them, growing into stunted malformed adults, producing little to no seed.

 

 

Many had fallen upon the soft plowed earth that the farmer had prepared, and they grew straight and high and multiplied many times over.  
 
  I have heard many of whom are called men of the cloth preach this parable’s meaning as simply a metaphor on how to live your life.   ​Let us pose questions that will bring us to this meaning.

 

Some souls will become stunted and sentenced to wither away into nothingness? Some grow among weeds and fight desperately for sunlight and nourishment only to mutate into something less than their true potential?

 

The soul that is not caught up by the wind of change will settle upon prepared and fertile soil and will win the race of the chosen, ultimately to be reaped by God?  
 
  I then ponder if this simple and obvious interpretation is all that is offered in Christ's teaching or is a deeper enlightenment yet to be found.

 

The shallow interpretation by this preacher, insinuates that the grain that fell upon the inhospitable surfaces, where somehow inherently different from the other grains, so they, even before birth are sentenced to death or a terribly disorientating life.  
 

   This terrible life sentenced was passed before they even hit the ground.

 

​If this parable is to be compared with the life of man, then we must assume our souls to be judged worthy or unworthy before we are given life.

 

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   How can this be a judgement when all the grain were equal in pureness at the start, as they flowed through the farmers hand. It was not any fault of the grain if it fell onto baron or crowded earth. The farmers hand dealt out the seeds in earnest the wind determined it's fate.  
 
  Can we not see a much deeper meaning into this teaching?… 
Our souls can not control where they land, to take root in this world. If it be wealth or poverty. Or among the good or the evil. It is the life giving breath of God like dandelion seeds ridding on the wind that leads us to the ground in which we are to sprout. In all of the teachings that we read of Gods mercy and forgiving nature, would he  forget the unfortunate beginnings of even a grain of seed? Would not another chance at life be the fairest of judgments, rather than condemnation?. Or perhaps the Lord like the wind carries the seeds of life to a planned curriculum in a carefully chosen place of learning.  
 
  God forgives all, for it is not our souls choice of which class room fate provides. I realize how easily it is for me to forgive the little seed for growing into an unproductive adult when sowed among the weeds. I would even champion it’s right to be reseeded once again. 
 
  Can I forgive my brother as easily if he is sown among weeds? Why is this not as simple.  Among the well tended, life is easy, the fight for sunlight and nourishment is insured by the farmers skills. Not so for all that fall among the weeds. Who am I to judge which was given his or her place in life through the will and choice of God himself. 
 
  Am I to insinuate that God had made an era in his sowing of souls? Even those among the good soil lay Foley to the evils of their own place of life.  Among the grain that grows tall and strong the farmer will find many beautifully formed stalks that grew deformed and useless fruits.  
At harvest time, they will be revealed, judged and sorted into the silo of swine feed and bedding.

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  After the harvest the farmer will venture  into the bordering brush to find the many wayward crops that grew on their own without his care. Among the not so large and not so perfect plants,  he knows he will find that the battle for survival has produce some of the sweetest fruit, and strongest of seeds. This will not go to market, this he will keep for himself to sow the next season for the hardiest of natures hybreds formed strong from the fight to live amongst the weeds.
 
 
  As I watch the last of the floating seeds fall to earth among the meadow I wonder how many will be given the gift of life. I ponder the fate of the other seeds that will not sprout this time around. Perhaps the spark of life that dwells within the seed that doesn’t sprout, simply returns from whence it came. Once again to be placed within a new mothers womb, and to float among the breeze come next season.  
 
  This sounds more like the Grace that would be given at the hand of a God that is just and fair.  Or are we to believe that our fathers judgment would be liken too that of a Roman emperor, whom hands out judgments of death and torture from a his golden thrown. 
 
  I can not believe in a God that sits on a thrown of judgment. This ideology of God is nothing more than an aging painting on the wall of a 14th century Basilica. Carefully designed by the administrates to frighten people into submission to their own self appointed authority.  Can a father earn the love and respect of his children at the end of a sword? Or in this way does the child learn only fear and submission?  
 

 God is found in the caring hand of the farmer as he prepares the earth for sowing. He is the soft breeze that brings us to our chosen place in life. Life is a gift of knowledge the sowing hand created the brush of weeds as well as the crop of the field.  

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From the Gnostic Scriptures, The Gospel of Thomas says… 
 
  Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father’s) kingdom is within you and it is outside you. 
 
 
  I again notice my surroundings, and this stone chair in which I sit. Maybe it’s placement is not a fluke of nature, Maybe it is much more, then it seems. A solitary chair for a solitary man. Placed and carved by the hand of a solitary God, and placed in his quiet and tranquil Meadow class room that only God can build.  
 
  I look across the now darkened meadow as the sky turns into a star studded sphere.
Across the meadow sits a bright evening moon that shines a narrow path of light across the sleeping clover and rolls up the hill side and touches my feet. and I begin to wonder once again. 

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