I’ve been reading Ecclesiastes of late, and after discoursing about the many facets of life’s absurdities, the conclusion the Preacher comes to quite often can be simply stated as “there is nothing better for man to eat and drink and take pleasure in all of his toil”. If I’m to be honest, on the farm, our toil is difficult, and our food and drink is pretty standard; bread, butter, cheese, eggs, pasta, lettuce, and onions. A LOT of onions. Now, before any wary reader thinks I’m being passive-aggressive about the glut of onions we eat, I can candidly state that I actually LIKE onions, this moral reflection was originally undertaken on behalf of my lamentable comrades who don’t appreciate the fine vegetable as much as I do.
Nevertheless, I will pre-empt this short essay by saying it may be the product of the monotony of the days, the standardized diet, the cold, the 6 pm curfew, the work, and, perhaps, at last resort, my own eccentric whim. But, I am getting long-winded and preambling the preamble, so here is the crux of the matter; after much philosophical debate that stems from a great deal of free time, I’ve decided that the gospel is sometimes a bit like an onion, so much so, that, in a paroxysm of boredom, I’ve decided to write a short essay about it, and even go so far to post it as a blog for lack of better content.
Now, before you laugh, as far as I know, onions are quite complete in their onion existence and don’t care enough about their inner souls to write lengthy essays about themselves, but I’ve never had an intelligent conversation with an onion, or even really met one, so my thinking is probably biased, and onions might have a rich imaginative life that I am blissfully unaware of. Nevertheless, as far as I can tell, if an onion could see itself at all, it would see itself as an ordinary onion, would understand its layered complexity as part of its essence, and would not be very interested in a stunning exposé of all its layers. No, an onion is only interesting to an outside observer who takes the time to ask it about its essence and wonder at its strange presence across the globe.
However, to the outsider that beholds the onion, the number of its layers is an intriguing mystery, maybe so fascinating that a clueless consort of scholars could sit around and debate each other endlessly on exactly what the onion means in the universe, how many layers that onion has, how this onion is different from another theoretical onion, etc. without even going near the purpose by which it was put on earth. No, it’s the cooks and other sensible people that don’t really ask pointless questions about the onion and instead prosaically slice it open and use it to garnish their dishes. Therefore, if you want to know how many layers an onion has, you would be better served with a good sharp knife than with a sharp intellect.
However, once someone with a healthy curiosity peels back the first layer of the onion, the inquirer will be surprised that there is always another layer, and another, until the core is reached. Anyone who has ever cut an onion will know from personal experience that halfway through the task one’s hands start to smell like onion, and one’s eyes begin to water, and long before one is done with the task of cutting the stupid thing, one wants nothing better than to just be finished already, but it takes a while to get to the core, and if one wants to know the purpose of this onion and how it should be used, one must finish the task properly, and take the unpleasant task to it’s logical fruition, being cooked and eaten.
Once one eats an onion, it is naturally digested and has some of its more offensive components travel to skin pores, and then, if one is not careful, one’s sweat will start to smell like onion. Perhaps such a smell is offensive to some people. Furthermore, when one eats an onion, the taste is strange and a little painful to the toungue. Nevertheless, as one acquires a taste for onions, they becomes tastier and less acrid, and soon, one finds oneself adding this unusual vegetable to one’s staple diet
Like an onion, the gospel is quite complete and content in itself; it is of no use to anyone unless it is put to its intended use and sliced. And like the gospel, there is ALWAYS another layer until we get to the core. However, unlike the onion, I am a firm believer that we won’t be able to see the core on this Earth, and so are doomed to the “arduous task” of slicing onions for the rest of our earthly lives. And sometimes, this task makes us cry and wish that it was all over, but the only thing that will remedy the problem is simply to finish, something that will not happen until the end of this life. Furthermore, when we take the task of the gospel to its logical end, discipleship, it begins to leave its marks on us, and we can’t easily go back to the lifestyles we left behind us, and we are now transformed and even smell like this new lifestyle.
But, perhaps, at this point, the analogy breaks down and I’m waxing eloquent about a strange vegetable and should stop in the interest of preserving my reader’s time…
