The Parable of the Sower: a New Interpretation

Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019

Yesterday, I arrived home after a visit to my daughter Mallory and her husband Blake in Georgia. While there, we went to a park called Stone Mountain Park. Here is a photo to give you an idea of the wonder of this natural phenomenon.

It is a huge single piece of granite stone rising above the relatively flat area surrounding Atlanta, Georgia. It looks kind of like some giant dropped a monstrous granite Easter egg on the ground and left it there for us tiny human ants to ponder how in the world it got there.

We rode a gondola to the top of the stone and enjoyed the amazing view of the green forests around Atlanta.

While exploring the top of the stone mountain, I discovered something that totally amazed me. It was a tree growing out of the solid granite rock.

There was not a speck of earth on the rock and yet this tree managed to somehow grow there against all odds and logical reason. This encounter with sheer tenacity made an impression on my mind that caused me to ponder. I thought of the parable of the sower and how some seeds “fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth… And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root they withered away.” The stony places symbolize people who don’t have a depth of conviction and when any small amount of difficulty arises, they “wither away” and abandon their conviction.

I thought of a new perspective on the stony ground metaphor that was much more admirable than those who abandon their convictions when opposition arises. This amazing tree could be a symbol of those who don’t whine about the impossible circumstances of their lives. They take what they were given in this life and by sheer force of will manage to not only survive, but even thrive. This tree did not have the choice to simply abandon the stony place and go look for some fertile ground where it could live a comfortable and easy life. After all, trees don’t walk and no amount of whining would change this fact. It only had the choice to accept its circumstances and make the best of them or give up and die. This tree was probably 30 or more years old, so it didn’t merely maintain a positive attitude for a day or two, but it consistently persisted over many years to reach for the sky.

The lesson of life that this tree represents to me is that we ultimately control our own destiny by the choices we make. Regardless of the cards we have been dealt, we can use them to become strong and successful or we can use them as excuses to fail. It’s all up to us and our own exercise of our ability to choose how we will react.

This life was not meant to be a place free from adversity and the more adversity we face the stronger we may become. Another representation of this concept is captured so well in the following poem.

Good Timber

by Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

I suppose this story sounds more like a church sermon than a story from my life history, but my life is still happening and I am still learning the lessons of life, so I hope you don’t mind when I share them with you.