Blog Archives

Parable of the Sower

3/25/2016

March 26th

I woke up in the night a few days ago with this passage from the Christian Bible running through my mind. This is from the New International Version.

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

I've loved this particular Bible story for years, though I didn't grow up reading the Bible. It reminds me to do my best to be fertile soil for the seeds that I want to grow in my life. It's tempting to become hard, shallow or distracted. But living a life of intention takes attention.

This parable also reminds me to cast seeds of love and justice, not knowing where they will land, if they will take root, if they will multiply. However the act of scattering is worthy work for my soul regardless of the long term outcome.

May this Easter be a time of renewed hope and abundance for our world.

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Meddling Auntie Advice

3/9/2016

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I’m of a class and at an age in which many of my beloved godchildren, nieces, and nephews are graduating from college. I feel the urge to give each and every one of them some emphatic, unsolicited advice. On Christmas Eve I pounced upon an unsuspecting college senior at church. This is what I told her, and what I’d tell them all:

Give yourself a break: In some core way your life has been planned for you up until now. It’s huge to have so much choice opened up before you. There are so many options before you, but you can’t do them all. You will have to choose. Give yourself time to figure out what you want your life to look like. Studying a subject in school can be very, very different from working in that profession. Just because you majored in something doesn’t mean that will be the right field for you. Just because you’ve been saying you’re going to be a lawyer since you were ten years old doesn’t mean law school is your next best step in life.

Profession or location?: There are some professions that drive where you live and other that you can do just about anywhere. Think carefully about which kind of career you’d prefer.

No graduate degree is better than the wrong graduate degree: A Bachelor’s in anything is a good financial investment and will open doors for you. There are many reasons to go to graduate school, but the wrong degree is expensive in time and money. It’s better to delay getting a graduate degree than to get one because you’re not sure what else to do.

Be a fan club of one: Notice people whose lifestyles you admire. Set up a time to have tea and ask them what choices they made to get there. People generally love to talk about themselves and you’ll most likely see that what looks like a nice, neat, perfectly planned life was filled with detours, uncertainty, luck, and determination.

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The cost of privilege

3/2/2016

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I live in a world where we often talk about privilege in various forms: male privilege, white privilege, class privilege, thin privilege. I wholeheartedly believe that there are distinct advantages that come from simply being born as a member of a privileged group in our society.

However, I also believe that there are costs to being privileged. And I hope that understanding those costs will contribute to the conversation about the systems of oppression that harm well-being.

When I was in my mid-twenties I worked in an office at UC San Francisco. One of my co-workers was a gay man living with AIDS who had been shunned by his father when he came out. As Paul told me some of his story, he talked about being proud of the life he made for himself--most especially for having finished college. He said it was something that no one could ever take from him and it clearly gave him a deep sense of dignity. His eyes shone as he spoke and I understood that he would die more peacefully because of this accomplishment.

I was stunned because, while I also had a college degree (actually by then I had two), I wasn’t the slightest bit proud of my education. In my mind and heart college was a hoop that I jumped through, a baseline expectation no more worthy of pride than finishing 4th grade. After some reflection I realized the cost of having college-educated parents (who assumed I would sail through higher education) was a lack of pride in my personal accomplishment. It was seen as ordinary, though I had worked hard to achieve it.

Even as I share this story I question my entire premise that there is a cost to privilege. Something still feels true about that idea but I can tell I’m still missing something. I’m going to keep wrestling with the question until I have more clarity about the answer. I think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs) might hold some insight.

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Laila Ibrahim is a passionate author set out to write stories of love's ability to transcend human-made systems of oppression.

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