It's the season of Advent, anticipating the remembrance of Jesus' earth birth. To be honest, I'm pretty obtuse when it comes to traditional seasonal observations like this. I know there are symbolic candles involved, but what they symbolize always escapes me. As it turns out, this first one represents "hope". There is a song written by Jon Foreman about hope as "the anthem of my soul". A few poignant lyrics go: Hope's a seed you have to sow When you let it go it comes to life So you stretch your arrows on the bow And you pull them back and watch them fly My heartbeat, my oxygen My banner, my home My future, my song Your hope is the anthem of my soul Hope... a seed... the anthem of my soul. Jesus had a thing or two to say about seeds as well. In the Parable of the Growing Seed, Jesus explains that the Kingdom of Heaven (or as I like to say, God's Way) is like a seed. When you plant a seed, it's a necessary part of growing a plant, but its

The idea for a book came to me while gardening with my wife. As we weeded our plot in a sizable US city, I realized something: I'm not used to the agrarian lifestyle. I got to thinking about Jesus' parables, and how many of them involve 1st century farming tactics. How very different was the culture of his audience from my own. I grew curious about how Jesus' parables representing the Kingdom of Heaven might effect us more potently if they were recast in modern situations. As cultures shift, languages get translated, and new technologies change the way we do things, the original historical context—an inherent obstacle to understanding— begs for reinterpretation . Furthermore, it occurred to me that Jesus’ parables are taught using adult characters and situations; yet he said, “Let the children come to me, don’t stop them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14) While I believe aspiring to Scripture is an important and humbling practice, i t mus