Yesterday the majority of our staff attended a professional development session on parables.

Although not planned that way, it was an appropriate session to attend during Book Week. Dr Peta Goldberg talked about some very well known parables and explained the context of the time, the audience and the author’s purpose.

I will never quite look at them the same way again!

I loved learning that Luke’s parable of the Lost Coin was not really about a poor woman desperate for money but in fact a rich woman searching for her dowry. I did not know that she wore them across the top of her veil sitting on her forehead or that if she divorced they were hers to keep.

Like the parables surrounding this one, The Lost Sheep and The Lost Son, Luke reminds his audience, rich Greeks, to be more generous to the poor, not focussed on increasing their wealth. Who knew??

I am a bit of teacher nerd to be honest, I love learning something new. I love celebrating books with excited children and teachers.

Mostly I love to read and reread favourite books.  Now when I read the parables I will use a different lens to discover the message.

Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.

Malcolm Muggeridge