As Broadleaf Books releases to bookstores and Amazon my little reflection on the parables today, I thought I might explain to you why I have written this book.
Tongue-in-cheek, I say that if my musical heroes like Mavis Staples, Aaron Neville and Ry Cooder can offer at least one gospel record over their careers, I should offer my time to do at least one “gospel book” in gratitude for the sacred world I get to live, love, garden and eat in all-too-briefly.
On a more serious note, I am convinced that the agrarian parables, proverbs, and aphorisms of Jesus have an uncanny relevance for us today. Just as there was clearly a crisis for farmers and fishers in Jesus’s time, many in our own society are now slipping into crises of similar magnitude, ones that have begun to sink our fishing fleets in debt and knock the legs out from under our on-farm workforce.
We need to raise up the people who offer us our daily bread, wine and fish, accompany them in their struggles, and never, ever take for granted the land nor the people who nourish us. It’s that simple.
