‘Building Towers’, or allowing the grace of G-d to provide growth

Mark’s Gospel states: “The Kingdom of God is as if a a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how.” [Mark 4:26,27]

The way of general growth or that of “humbling oneself to the role of a seed”, in opposition to the ways of specialization or to those of “exalting oneself by building towers” –  sets the preceding text in relief.

To grow or to exert one’s own energy to build – this is the choice which it comes down to – in the last analysis:

• This choice is the way of salvation and the way of perdition; or the way of intimate perfection and that resulting in an impasse.

The idea of hell is simply that of a definite spiritual impasse; to complement, that of purgatory refers to the process of rejection of the tendencies towards impasses of specialization, with a view to safeguarding and keeping the way of perfection open – the way of salvation.

To exalt oneself or to abase oneself, to specialize oneself in order to gain temporary advantages or to be moved only by the hunger and thirst for truth, beauty and goodness, to build a tower, or to grow “sleeping and rising night and day..without knowing how”…here is the choice that every human being, every community, every tradition and every spiritual school, must make.

• exalt self –vs. - abase self;
• specialize to gain an advantage – vs. - to be moved only by the quest (hunger and thirst) for truth, beauty and goodness;
• “to build a tower” – vs. – to grow “sleeping and rising night and day..without knowing how”;

These are the choices of our own doing that our human species must make in order to move forward.

We are free to choose. In that choice is a very basic human scenario.

Those who desire to grow spiritually – how can this growth be continually stimulated? How can one apply fertilizer, cultivate, and properly ‘husband’ one’s own spiritual growth?

Those who desire to grow in intimacy in relationship to the Creator are faced with a much more dramatic choice.

Shall the esoteric truths of the faith be exposed to the masses without discrimination? Why can’t we cast our pearls before the uninitiated?

Does the confusion of those who want to “do” something - with being a mason who is dedicated to building towers, or becoming a gardener – who waits for what he knows not – to sprout into a plant – cause you to pause between the choices and ponder your role in life, work, and business?

I have been trained as a mason, to build, to create. Many of our human professions are set about and given to its adherents in this way.

As a follower of the Way, my motivations and posturing should be that of a gardener, whose base energies must be patient, and whose understanding of the process of his life is to “wait”. For indeed, it is God “who grants the increase”.

The key for the gardener is the God given faculty: Grace. It is the necessary ingredient for the growth of the Body…our bodies as humans…and our body, the church.

The way of salvation is grace, given by the Creator. He is the underlying instigator of the growth, not the work of the mason, whose work is destined to someday be destroyed by a thunderbolt…like the original tower of Babel met its demise.

For the truth is expressed by Solomon of antiquity in his Proverbs and by Jesus the Christ.

“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”