Corbin! This was a wonderful use of parallelism!! The abrupt end left me confused until I realized you were employing that literary device. It works very effectively. His approach seems reasonable: taking the necessary steps to form and execute a secure strategy. Then, as for many of us as life moves forward, his values change. He gets comfortable with his farm. Then he dies.
This strikes a chord with me, and it's a particularly dissonant one. I do not want to die like this man, letting a reasonable, comfortable, practical existence manifest itself, rather than recklessly seeking out a satisfying life and death.
This, perhaps, misapplies your analogy (or Jesus' one, rather), as it is, arguably, about salvation, though "the kingdom of heaven" might be interpreted a number of ways. To better respond to what you say directly I should preface it with a clarification: I am not religious. I grew up in a protestant Christian tradition, but have since labelled myself agnostic. A point of slight confusion that arose before this point was as to why there was such a great amount of "lukewarm" Christians, even among evangelicals who attend church every week and condemn this very thing. Specifically my concern was with why everyone did not live, die, and base their success entirely on preaching the salvation of the world? I tended to spend time with these folks, in part just because they make up the majority, but I still always felt, and still feel that the mystics and missionaries are, at the very least, consistent with their actions to their convictions. Willing to sell forgo their belongings--literally--for a great treasure.
Thank you for writing this Corbin! I enjoyed this quite a lot.
Corbin! This was a wonderful use of parallelism!! The abrupt end left me confused until I realized you were employing that literary device. It works very effectively. His approach seems reasonable: taking the necessary steps to form and execute a secure strategy. Then, as for many of us as life moves forward, his values change. He gets comfortable with his farm. Then he dies.
This strikes a chord with me, and it's a particularly dissonant one. I do not want to die like this man, letting a reasonable, comfortable, practical existence manifest itself, rather than recklessly seeking out a satisfying life and death.
This, perhaps, misapplies your analogy (or Jesus' one, rather), as it is, arguably, about salvation, though "the kingdom of heaven" might be interpreted a number of ways. To better respond to what you say directly I should preface it with a clarification: I am not religious. I grew up in a protestant Christian tradition, but have since labelled myself agnostic. A point of slight confusion that arose before this point was as to why there was such a great amount of "lukewarm" Christians, even among evangelicals who attend church every week and condemn this very thing. Specifically my concern was with why everyone did not live, die, and base their success entirely on preaching the salvation of the world? I tended to spend time with these folks, in part just because they make up the majority, but I still always felt, and still feel that the mystics and missionaries are, at the very least, consistent with their actions to their convictions. Willing to sell forgo their belongings--literally--for a great treasure.
Thank you for writing this Corbin! I enjoyed this quite a lot.