Wherever a story comes from, whether it is a familiar myth or a private memory, the retelling exemplifies the making of a connection from one pattern to another: a potential translation in which narrative becomes parable and the once upon a time comes to stand for some renascent truth. This approach applies to all the incidents of everyday life: the phrase in the newspaper, the endearing or infuriating game of a toddler, the misunderstanding at the office. Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.
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Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble.
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Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.
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A woman lost her only son and this caused her great pain and she carried the body of her son around the village looking for someone who had a potion to bring him back to life. Someone told her that Buddha has such a potion. She found Buddha at his retreat and asked him if he had such a potion. He said that yes he does. She asked if there was any herbs she could collect to aid in it's making. Buddha said that he needed some mustard seeds. She said she would collect some mustard seeds. As she was leaving Buddha said the seeds need to come from a household that has never known death. The woman said she would find these seeds. Every home she visited had the seeds to give her, but every home had experienced death at one time. In one a mother, in another a daughter, in another a servant, and in another a husband. Finally the woman realized that no one goes through life without experiencing the pain of death. At this time she let them take the body of her son and bury him. She returned to Buddha to thank him for reminding her of this simple fact. Buddha said the realization that everyone experiences the pain of death did not ease the pain of her loss, it eased the suffering of her holding on.
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Jesus of Nazareth could have chosen simply to express Himself in moral precepts; but like a great poet He chose the form of the parable, wonderful short stories that entertained and clothed the moral precept in an eternal form. It is not sufficient to catch man's mind, you must also catch the imaginative faculties of his mind.
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Christ does not save us by acting a parable of divine love; he acts the parable of divine love by saving us. That is the Christian faith.
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Our lives are like the talents in the parable of the three stewards. It is something that has been given to us for the time being and we have the opportunity and privilege of doing our best with this precious gift.
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Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: / But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
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Matthew 13:31:
He told them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.'
(NIV)
Another story by way of comparison He set forth before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field.
(AMP)
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
(KJV)
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Matthew 13:24:
Jesus told them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.'
(NIV)
Another parable He set forth before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.
(AMP)
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
(KJV)
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He who rejoices even at the stake triumphs not over pain but over the absence of pain where he had anticipated feeling it. A parable.
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Luke 19:11:
While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.
(NIV)
And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
(KJV)
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I will open my mouth in a parable I will utter dark sayings of old. Things that we have heard and known, that our fathers told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell it to the coming generations.
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Luke 12:16:
And he told them this parable: 'The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.'
(NIV)
Then He told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man was fertile and yielded plentifully.
(AMP)
And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
(KJV)
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Luke 18:1:
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
(NIV)
And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
(KJV)
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Luke 18:9:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:
(NIV)
And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
(KJV)
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Luke 8:9:
His disciples asked him what this parable meant.
(NIV)
And when His disciples asked Him the meaning of this parable
(AMP)
And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
(KJV)
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