Center Vs Periphery

( Musings on today’s Gospel, Sower and the Seed )

 

I am watching a farmer clearing the ground for cultivation. He has all sorts of soil in his field. Some areas are level and easy to dig and less work to get it ready. Other areas are  stony and bushy. The  farmer starts with the easier patches of ground. As he digs  he takes  the stones that come up  and throws them on to the periphery of the good soil where there are already some stones and bushes. He burdens the stony and bushy areas with more stones and bushes. He seems to have no plans for this patch of ground at least not for this year.

 Finally after much swept and hard work he has converted some patches into  good soil. It is made good in a way  at the expense of the periphery patches which are  made worse by the additional stones and bushes that are thrown on to it. The farmer takes great care of the good soil. He digs deep, puts fertilizer, provides water, puts up hedges,  buys the best seeds.  He invests  ‘all’ he has for the sake of the good soil while he seems to have no thought for the periphery.

The farmer seems ‘unjust’ to the periphery  and partial to the good soil.  All his attention and investment is for the good. He may seem unjust but he is smart and calculative. He wants a good crop so that he can invest more and bring more thorny soil into the category of the good in the coming years.

The elder son stands by the road side with folded hands accusing his younger brother of wastefulness and immorality. He accuses him because he is not obedient, chaste and  poor like him. The father gently reminds him that he has given the elder son ‘all’ he has. He has received far more than the younger son. He has been far more time with him.

We find so often in our communities the ‘good brigades’  complaining and  accusing because others are not like them. They find others having an easy life, not keeping the rules, not obedient and chaste, not willing to shoulder responsibilities.

The ‘good brigades‘, the elder sons,  cannot  grumble and complain and compare with those on the periphery. The farmer has invested far more for them. They often had opportunity, privilege others did not have. They were sent abroad for long years of study and updating. Some of them came back after four or six years without fruits and had to be send again to get a degree. All these while those who were considered not so brilliant and productive, those on the periphery, had to bear the brunt of additional job. Sticks and stones were heaped on them. The farmer although seemed unjust  was hopeful  of a good harvest from the good soil so that he could invest more and bring more and more periphery  into the category of good soil.

The farmer will be disappointed if the ‘good brigades’ begin to complain and condemn because those around them are not like them. They cannot be like them, at least for now. The farmer has not invested on them not even one fourth of what he has invested  for the good soil. Instead he had burdened them with additional sticks and stones.

The only way to bring all the soil into the category of good soil is for the good soil to produce more so that farmer can invest more on the periphery  in the coming years. Rather than compare and condemn those on the peripheries, those who are privileged and  favored   to be at the  center must  produce at least a thirty or sixty if not a  hundred.