Sunday 31 May 2020

Episode 136 - The Winnowing Oar


I have always loved Greek mythology. Probably because I’ve always loved stories and Greek mythology has some great ones of adventures to worlds that can only be imagined. One of the most famous is Homer’s Odyssey. It’s unusual in mythology because we know who wrote it. Well I say wrote it, Homer actually spoke it, someone else would have recorded his story because it was never intended to be read, but to be heard. This is probably the reason that the Odyssey has a special place in my heart, you may have noticed that most of the time I write like I speak and I have always found something more natural about spoken word than written.




The Odyssey is a tale about a man; Odysseus. It continues from where the Iliad ends and tells the story of Odysseus’ ten year journey to get back to the thing that he wants more than anything; to get home and be with his family. On his way he consults with a seer for help to get back home. Odysseus receives the help he needs but it comes at a cost. He has to promise that once he has returned home and spent some time with his family, he must then continue his journey and leave everything he has ever known or cared about behind. He must travel to a land so far removed from the life he has known that he must take an oar from his boat and travel inland until he has journeyed so far that the people in the land don’t recognise his oar, but mistake it for a winnowing fork used to thresh grain. Only then will his journey have reached it’s end and that place is to become his new home.




Jars of Clay wrote a song about this. It’s a song that means a lot to me. It compares this last unwritten part of Odysseus’ journey with that of the journey of the Christian getting to know God more. It often feels that the more we trust and follow God, the more unfamiliar our lives become, and sometimes we have to chose to let go of things in order to continue that journey. It often takes a lot of trust to continue the journey, but the more faith we place in God, the more we see how faithful He is. These present times are particularly unfamiliar, but I believe this is all part of an opportunity to trust Him more. This song has always been a big encouragement to me and I hope it might be to you too, so I’ll just leave a link to it here…

1 comment:

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