Parable of the Sower

by Octavia E. Butler

A lot of people seem to believe in a big-daddy-God or a big-cop-God or a big-king-God. They believe in a kind of super-person. A few believe God is another word for nature. And nature turns out to mean just about anything they happen not to understand or feel in control of.

Some say God is a spirit, a force, an ultimate reality. Ask seven people what all of that means and you’ll get seven different answers. So what is God? Just another name for whatever makes you feel special and protected?

Secretaries of Astronautics don’t have to know much about science. They have to know about politics.

Cory gets upset. She jumps on me for sharing pain with the living, but she tries to share it with the dead.

I began writing this about Mrs. Sims because she killed herself. That’s what’s upset me. She believed, like Dad, that if you kill yourself, you go to hell and burn forever. She believed in a literal acceptance of everything in the Bible. Yet, when things got to be too much for her, she decided to trade pain for eternal pain in the hereafter. How could she do that? Did she really believe in anything at all? Was it all hypocrisy?

Belief Initiates and guides action— Or it does nothing.

but it took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change.” “So?” “Things are changing now, too. Our adults haven’t been wiped out by a plague so they’re still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back. But things have changed a lot, and they’ll change more. Things are always changing. This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take. People have changed the climate of the world. Now they’re waiting for the old days to come back.”

“It’s better to teach people than to scare them, Lauren. If you scare them and nothing happens, they lose their fear, and you lose some of your authority with them. It’s harder to scare them a second time, harder to teach them, harder to win back their trust. Best to begin by teaching.”

I am Earthseed.

Why is the universe? To shape God. Why is God? To shape the universe.

Food prices are insane, always going up, never down. Everyone complains about them.

To get along with God, Consider the consequences of your behavior.

My point is—my question is—how in the world can anyone get married and make babies with things the way they are now?

Any Change may bear seeds of benefit. Seek them out. Any Change may bear seeds of harm. Beware. God is infinitely malleable. God is Change.

And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it.

Worship is no good without action. With action, it’s only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, eases your mind.”