Reply to @Denny @richnewman @patrickrhone at https://beardystarstuff.net/2024/01/16/i-finished-reading.html

I started reading Parable of the Sower exactly one year to the date mentioned at the start of the book at the public library in Pasadena where she grew up. As a 49 year old father of a 12 year old daughter, it was a much more visceral and eerie experience than I could ever have expected. She has forever changed the perspective I have driving down the streets of our shared neighborhood.

I'm not sure if they'll have open remote registrations for it or if it will only be broadcast locally, but the local Octavia Butler Book Club has an upcoming zoom session on Feb 24 which can be found in the Pasadena Public Library's newsletter (.pdf). It will feature Dr. Kendra Parker via Zoom from Georgia to present her lecture: "Walking a Mile in Her Shoes: Exploring Octavia Butler's Archives."

The nearby Huntington Library houses her papers and some of her materials there may be accessible online.

• a powerful reminder that the second coming of jesus christ is a joyous occasion, which is why it's symbolized by a marriage feast:

"there's a marriage coming! It's gonna be great!" - dr. camille f. olson (https://open.spotify.com/episode/0vGHSOKivLW2MkDLwecsH2?si=73ef0cee0a3c47c8)

• the prominence of the message of repentance stems from the fact that the gospel of jesus christ is a gospel of salvation brought upon by repentance, which is closely tied to humility. our recognition of our own nothingness leads us to rely on the boundless everythingness of our god to be perfected one day. (Doctrine and Covenants 6:9, 11:9, Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual 11)

[[say nothing but repentance]]

I love that Dave has started a list of these useful social justice metaphors.

I got side tracked by the idea this morning and submitted a handful I could think of off the top of my head.

• Baseball fence
• Parable of the Polygons
• Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

I'm curious if there are any useful ones in the neurodiversity space? I feel like I need more of these myself.

This reminds me of the slave collars in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Talents.

"Freedom River" (1971), a cartoon parable narrated by Orson Welles. Cute, and its message is more pressing today. But they should have included a bit about how much of the nation was built by people who were here first, and others who were enslaved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKLirW24LE<br> Open Culture has a background story.

Small, fragile, and tenuously suspended and preserved, encased in ignorance, by the same substance, ego, source of good and ill. It reminds me of the fable of a woman hanging from a cliff by a thin reed, tigers above and tigers below, and spying a ripe strawberry plucks and savors its sweetness, as a parable for life.