And the winner is…
So it is time to unveil the winning parable. It was difficult choosing 2nd and 3rd place as there where around half a dozen others that particularly stuck out to me as possible candidates. However, when I received this parable I knew straight away I had the winner in my hands.
This parable is not only beautifully crafted, but has a narrative that really made me stop in my tracks and think. This is a piece of writing I have returned to many times since I received it a few weeks ago. It is engaging, disturbing, thoughtful and rich enough to inspire interesting and conflictual commentaries. The parable was written by Kester Brewin and is entitled Footprints…
There was once a man who had lived a long and difficult life. When he finally lay down, a faint smile bent the lines in his face as his eyes were shut. He had run the race; now he could rest. The curtain was pulled back, and he stumbled through the light to meet God.
‘My Master and my Friend,’ the old man hailed God as he prostrated himself before God’s feet. Hearing no reply, the man looked up and saw God shuffling awkwardly in his chair, not quite managing to fight back a blush across his cheeks.
Not wanting his moment of judgement and welcome to be spoiled, the old man gathered his courage and spoke up. ‘My Lord and my God,’ he began, nervously. ‘Is this not the time when my life and works shall be weighed in your scales and my named checked against those who have made it into the Book of Life?’ After such a tiring day it was difficult for him to remember the exact details of what was meant to be happening, but he felt certain that it should be God who should be taking the lead.
‘My child,’ said God sadly, before petering out and looking around for some way out.
Following God’s gaze, the old man took in a crumpled photo, pinned to a crowded notice board hung askew in a dark corner. His heart leapt. ‘Father,’ he said, getting up carefully like a servant in Medieval court, ‘here is a photo of footprints on a beach…’
God took it and stared at it for a while and as the man perceived his eyes glistening, his own tears came, for he knew the photo, and knew the words of comfort that came with it. ‘Tell me, Lord,’ he said, knowing already the lines that would come, ‘tell me what the footprints mean.’
And so God began.
‘Your life has been like a walk along the beach with me, many scenes from your life flashing across the sky. In each scene there are footprints in the sand, sometimes two sets, at other times only one.’
At this point God paused, and looked down, and so the old man seized the initiative, and played too his part.
‘Lord, this bothers me because I notice that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I can see only one set of footprints.’
He looked up, but saw God unmoved, so continued. ‘You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?’
He bowed his head, holding back the tears, ready for the words of succour that he knew must come.
And slowly God replied, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when you carried me.’
The man frowned for a moment, paused, and then looked up. ‘Surely Lord,’ he began rather embarrassed to be correcting the Almighty, ‘you mean when you carried me.’
‘My dear child,’ God said, twisting a loose thread of cloth from his flowing robes, his face suddenly a mirror in which the old man saw the battles he had fought and the doubts he had put asunder, ‘this was the measure of your faith: when difficulties came, you gathered up this tired and arthritic God, and carried your beliefs to safety.’
A small wind blew through the old photographs and worn papers, and the two men sat in silence for a moment.
‘I have prepared a room for you,’ God said after a while, ‘though I quite understand if you don’t want me to stay.’
I don’t want to say too much about this parable, except that it reminded me of Etty Hillesum’s diaries. Hillesum’s work was born out of the horrors of Nazi occupied Amsterdam (she was eventually murdered at Auschwitz on 30th November 1943). In one of her diaries she wrote to God saying, ‘Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold you responsible. You cannot help us but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last’.
Thank you Kester for such a rich, difficult and rewarding parable.
September 4th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Thanks for putting this contest Peter, it was a great idea. Got me writing for the first time (well, other than songs) and for that push I am thankful.
Please tell us that you are going to post a bunch of the other parables for us to read. I think there are lots of us who would love to read more.
September 4th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Congrats, Kester, on a well-earned victory!
This is a piece you should be proud of.
Very challenging and stimulating.
Congratulations.
September 4th, 2009 at 6:21 am
Wow Kester,
this old man has much to consider after reading your parable. What a humble Father we have. Hope to read more of your writings.
Peace, Skip.
September 4th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Wow Kester, great job and I’m humbled to think about what an amazing and fragile gift our faith truly is.
Chris
September 4th, 2009 at 10:15 am
A well-spun parable. Peter, good to see that in your judgment you used an objective instrument that just so happened to choose your best friend as winner!
ok, only kidding, bro… i am just an embittered loser
seriously, that was a great idea and fun contest.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Hey Tyler… one of the problems was that so many of my friends entered! Interestingly Kester put this entry under the pseudonym Harry Otub. I was so impressed by the parable that I went and looked up the name on the internet. All I found were lots of sites advertising Hot Tubs. Then I worked out who it was as there was a time a couple of years ago when we were speaking in a conference and yet seemed to spend most of the time sitting in one of the organizers hot tubs.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:13 am
“Hot Tubs”…that’s funny.
To me, the most provoking statement is the closing: “though I quite understand if you don’t want me to stay.” That line draws me into a number of different directions. I first thought to myself, how could God say something like that? And then it hit me, God “understands.”
Well done, Kester.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:27 am
id be lying if i offered anything but my utter confusion.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I love Harry/Kester’s honesty in describing how it often is/seems between us and god. I find the most meaningful way to understand the incarnation and life/death of Jesus as Gods great apology for cocking up creation – and this parable seems to be in much the same vein. Good choice Dr Rollins.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Hi Pete,
It must have been a great exercise for everyone writing but also for you reading all the entries.
Kester’s parable has made me think, but I’m personally not sure about the line that the old man carried his beliefs about God “to safety.” Keeping our beliefs safe, by carrying them well above the hard experiences in life that can often challenge and alter beliefs most effectively and interestingly, leaves beliefs rigid and dogmatic in those very moments that could spark transformation.
September 4th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
[...] this page was mentioned by Ryfi (@ryfi), Jeff Dueck (@jfdueck), Greg (@gmc579), Scott Lenger (@scottlenger), Scott Lenger (@scottlenger) and others. [...]
September 4th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Thank you. Thank you to this parable’s author, and thanks to you for having these conversations – as well as telling your own tales. As a recovering evangelical fundamentalist (recovering both from being one myself and also being a victim of that kind of theology – it’s a vile hybrid) my ability to consider a God different from the one I was raised to believe in has been stunted – though a part of me always knew it wasn’t right. Retraining myself to choose and think and wrestle instead of swallowing someone’s ideology whole continues to be as big an internal war as was trying to believe, pretending to believe, and ignoring both the guilt for my unbelief and the whisper of a different God. However, these conversations help. These stories help as much as they hurt. You’d probably prefer some kind of intelligent push-back on this parable, but I am so exhausted from trying to hold up the facade of belief or unbelief that any moment of relief must be celebrated.
September 5th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
[...] This post was Twitted by ldsitalsingh [...]
September 6th, 2009 at 8:12 am
It reminds me of the death of God at end of The Amber Spyglass, though with a bit more theological depth. Good stuff.
September 7th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Good stuff!!! Any chance of posting other entries for our reading pleasure?
September 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
[...] Check out the first set of parables at http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=481. [...]
September 10th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Graceshaker:
Isn’t that partially the purpose of parables – to leave us wondering, thinking, puzzled?
This one certainly used a familiar icon – the footprints on the beach, but it took a surprising turn.
Thanks.
September 10th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
[...] mark the release of Rollins’ The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales. The winner was announced last week via Rollins’ blog, and is none other than Kester Brewin, author of Signs of [...]
September 12th, 2009 at 9:42 am
[...] Peter Rollins ran a parable contest, and now publishes the winners. [...]
September 12th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Well, for me it emphasises the duality of our relationship with God. It is not one sided. A true faith relationship requires the involvement of both. How do you relate to your most significant other? It is heirarchical or on the level plain? Where is the agape?
September 14th, 2009 at 3:29 am
How about posting the “losing parables”? They might mean something to someone who might just be in a place where one of the parables can touch him/her?
September 14th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I agree about posting the losing parables!