And Again With The Parables
23/12/13 10:07 Filed in: Personal | Inspirational
While these posts may be entertaining, they are also meant to be much more. Perhaps I should have started with the definition of parable from the start. A parable is a story that illustrates or teaches a moral or spiritual lesson or principle. It is not the same as a fable, because fables utilize plants, animals, inanimate objects, and the like as characters, but parables have human characters. A parable is a type of analogy.
An analogy is a comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
Down-home parables are designed to both entertain and to teach. Proceeding on that premise, I use the term “parable” rather loosely because most of what you will find here is simply not in the form of a proper parable. But whether what you find is a proper parable, or an analogy, or just an anecdote, the capacity for instruction is at the heart of what we write about.
The work is filled with people who all have ideas; wonderful ideas and terrible ideas. What you read here are some of my ideas. Some of them are good, some (hopefully few) may be terrible, but all are offered from a sincere heart, and without malice.
I have adopted a quote from George Bernard Shaw as my tag line, “The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.”
One of the greatest attributes of man is the ability to communicate what we are thinking through the medium of speech. What makes this particularly beneficial is that we can do this in real time; we do not have to draw up a plan about what we are going to say before we say it. Of course, this has its drawbacks too; we can speak without thinking things through.
Writing, while taking away the spontaneity of what we are communicating, lends itself far better to a higher degree of communication than does verbal communication. While writing we can turn our thoughts this way and that. Like a jeweler holding a diamond up to the light, he can better see how the cuts are to be made in order to bring out the greatest capture of light, and to reveal the natural luster of the stone (did you catch the parable?).
I hope you can embrace the ideas presented, and to apply them to your own life as you find them appropriate.
Down-home parables are designed to both entertain and to teach. Proceeding on that premise, I use the term “parable” rather loosely because most of what you will find here is simply not in the form of a proper parable. But whether what you find is a proper parable, or an analogy, or just an anecdote, the capacity for instruction is at the heart of what we write about.
The work is filled with people who all have ideas; wonderful ideas and terrible ideas. What you read here are some of my ideas. Some of them are good, some (hopefully few) may be terrible, but all are offered from a sincere heart, and without malice.
I have adopted a quote from George Bernard Shaw as my tag line, “The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.”
One of the greatest attributes of man is the ability to communicate what we are thinking through the medium of speech. What makes this particularly beneficial is that we can do this in real time; we do not have to draw up a plan about what we are going to say before we say it. Of course, this has its drawbacks too; we can speak without thinking things through.
Writing, while taking away the spontaneity of what we are communicating, lends itself far better to a higher degree of communication than does verbal communication. While writing we can turn our thoughts this way and that. Like a jeweler holding a diamond up to the light, he can better see how the cuts are to be made in order to bring out the greatest capture of light, and to reveal the natural luster of the stone (did you catch the parable?).
I hope you can embrace the ideas presented, and to apply them to your own life as you find them appropriate.
