IN MY previous column we have seen that Fr. Ben Alforque learned the hard way that Christians must forgive others and may not judge them. That is part of the spirituality of growth.

Modern society has an obsession for growth which shows itself in all spheres of life. The economy has to grow if the economic growth is half percent lower than the previous year, prestigious companies are closing up business because they fear that the growth within 10 years will be lower than today.

This spirit of the economy pervades all spheres of social life. When it concerns your career, you always want to go higher to the top of the social scale. First you look for a job that will keep your head above water, next you want to become a teacher or a professor so that you can propagate your ideas or give guidance to people, may be even a renowned professor who appears on TV.

If you are a lawyer, you aspire to become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or may be to be a judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. If you are after worldly growth, no achievement is good enough. On top of the mountain that you have reached already, you see other mountain tops looming up where you want to climb to.

The earthly desire for growth is treacherous. We see this happening also in other spheres of life, like in sports or in love life. When you got addicted to growth, you never get enough. You always want more, always better, standing still is growing backwards and before you know it, you lose yourself in a whirlwind of unfulfilled expectations. You dont know anymore how to cope with yourself and with all those people around you.

It is often said that the obsession for growth finds its origin in the Christian religion. And indeed, in Christian faith we see that nothing in this world is good enough. We have to strive after perfection in order to reach the heavenly Kingdom.

The parable of the sower seems to suggest this also: we must listen to the Word of God and live it to the full. Elsewhere Jesus says: be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Those who dont are like the seeds which fell in rocky soil and they will disappear into nothing.

But recently, I discovered that there is another version of the parable of the sower. One version appears in the Gospel of Matthew (Mt. 13, 4-9) and the other in the same chapter (Mt. 13, 24-30). The latter says that God, the sower, has sown the seeds of the Word of God and they all grow up and become a full-grown crop. But while growing up, there appear also weeds which have grown up together with the good crop.

According to the sower, the weeds have come from bad seeds which were sown by the enemy in the midst of the night. The servants want to pull out the weeds right away but the sower, who knows all about the good crop and those weeds, tells them not to do that. The sower knows that the good crop is strong enough and will survive. The weeds represent mens shortcomings and failures. The sower says: let them be, you cannot root them out. People have to live with their failures and shortcomings. They are part of the growing pains.

The Christian tradition has taught us the opposite: you must fight against your shortcomings and cut them out. You must try to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. But this version of the parable seems to suggest that you must give space to yourself to grow but also to give space to others to grow.

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