Wagon of Fools: & Other Parables

By Samuel Benjamin Gray

Book Overview

Here are seven parables-wisdom wrapped in messages presented as stories. A Jewish partisan wonders about Gods sovereignty. A woman lives the true reason for suffering. Confronted by tyranny, a man... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0982474903
• ISBN13: 9780982474907
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Wild Olive Press LLC
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Wagon of Fools

I love fiction and short stories that are well crafted. Wagon of Fools is one such book. Not only are the stories captivating, but one can tell the author knows and loves Christ. He gently and carefully touches each tale with truth. Wagon of Fools: & Other Parables

reviewer.com

This collection of parables presents a unique way of experiencing life in all its complexities, and is a delightful departure from the norm. Not one of these stories has a predictable ending, and each reader is bound to interpret these stories in a very personal way. I highly recommend Wagon of Fools and Other Parables by Samuel Benjamin Gray.

A "Must Read" book for Christians and Jews

This is not a book to be read for mere entertainment, although it is quite entertaining. It reads as well as any good novel, surprising the reader with its twists and turns, and invoking just about every emotion known to man. It's value is in the subtle ways in which the stories challenge the reader's presuppositions about God, suffering, evil, what God requires of us, etc., forcing him to rethink in ways that are not always comfortable. You may not agree with every implication of these stories, but you will certainly be challenged. It is a must-read for both Christians and Jews.

Great Book!

The seven stories in this book are exceptionally well written and I would recommend this book to anyone. Obviously, as parables, there are multiple meanings to these stories. On a secular level, I found the stories to be rich, vibrant and interesting. Most striking were the images that were painted through the author's words. This alone would make these stories worth reading. It was on the spiritual level that I found the stories to be most compelling, especially for those who are looking for spiritual truths in this world. The author makes it clear that there are eternal verities that sadly, many in our society miss. These verities, these truths about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are the underlying strength of all these stories. They demand circumspection and, I believe, a need to be ready, for all those who love Him, to heed His call in the times ahead.

Publisher's Review

This is a unique work written for thoughtful Christian readers hungry for good literature--for those who, tired of fiction littered with thin or anemic characters, predictable plots, and cliché endings, walk into bookstores searching for something by George MacDonald or C.S. Lewis. Mr. Gray has taken his time with these stories; his prose--intricate, poetic, and rich--engages the reader more than the prose styles to which today's Christian readers are accustomed. These parables are marked by an avoidance of compromise, and each requires a degree of thought and engagement from the reader not found in much of the pabulum that passes for much of modern Christian fiction. And like any good parable, each challenges some aspect of current trends in the religious culture of the day while at the same time asserting truth. "Story Before a Patrol" is a short, fast-paced narrative related by a Jewish partisan who must come to grips with a dilemma--his people are being murdered en masse, yet he was taught that God is sovereign over all things. What does God want? What is God doing? And why the Jews? "Macushla" is a parable about suffering. It seems that Gray's prose here is suffused with shades of Patrick O'Brian (it is told from an Irish narrator's perspective, with the same sweet appreciation for life and the glory of words). The story is a brief, sad, sweeping, epochal view of one woman's life as she endures what can only be described as the deepest wound, the hardest sacrifice, and the sweetest joy. "Up on Millstone Ridge" is a gray and solemn story, tinged with ashes, which poses the stark but rapidly emerging question to Christians: "What will you do when faced with demands from a totalitarian state--demands which directly contradict or prohibit the exercise of your faith--and you must make a choice between obeying God or obeying man?" "When Revelation Kissed Reason" is written in the genre of a fable; a famous doctor who treats autistic children in a clinic in the Adirondacks encounters a strange gardener with a unique perception of who God is and what He requires. In his contentions with this man, the doctor comes to learn by experience why God sent His Son, and why each of us must individually come to that Son to be truly healed. Gray takes this title, we suspect, from a line of text in one of Mark Helprin's stories in which Helprin laments the vast and unbridgeable gulf between Revelation and Reason. The story is a heart's cry from God to the Jew, in respect and love, calling them to recognize He Who is Truth and Beauty and Righteousness and Peace, and to demonstrate that Jesus is the only bridge between Revelation and Reason. "Note to Horatio" is the story of a despairing man who flees to the wilderness to recover from the pain caused by disobedience, and in his solitude encounters someone whose life depicts a different perspective on religion. For those who despair of today's institutional church--its adherence to cultural tradition which ac