As a high school and college student, I found it hard to specialize. I was interested in just about everything, except maybe calculus. As a college sophomore, I decided to major in English, but I couldn’t resist adding a double minor in political science and religion and theology.

As a generalist, I ended up in elementary education. It has been a good fit for me because I genuinely get excited about everything I teach.

During a pause in my teaching career a few years back, I took a detour into copy editing. Most of my clients were engineering graduate students born outside of North America. In the process, I learned a bit about microgrids, Gaussian noise, and communication systems in underground mines, although my focus was on the grammar and language flow of their dissertations.

Just before Easter one year, I made small talk with an Iranian-born client. I indicated I wasn’t sure if he celebrated Easter but that I wished him a good time with his family. To my surprise, he replied that he did celebrate Easter. 

About five years later, he connected me with a Maronite priest who had written a book about quantum physics and theology in French and Arabic. This priest, Father Michel, wanted to self-publish this work in English and was looking for a freelance editor. Yes, I was busy once again with my work as a teacher, but the topic sounded interesting. I agreed to take on the project.

And that is how I first encountered St. Ephrem of Syria and his lustrous pearl. 

Have you ever held and examined a pearl? It’s one thing to store up some facts about pearls in our minds and then have a logical understanding of what Jesus said when speaking about God’s kingdom. It’s quite another to ponder a pearl, roll it around in one’s palm, and earnestly seek its meaning and its beauty. 

Ephrem, a Syrian theologian who served as a deacon, did this very thing in around the year 360 CE. Based on his hands-on experience with a single pearl and his thoughtful reflections about it, he wrote seven hymns. 

Among other things, Ephrem observed that the pearl speaks with a “silent mouth” of the trophies, victories and crowns of Jesus Christ. The bright and luminous gem was for him a reflection of Jesus, the “Light of the world.”

Inspired by St. Ephrem, I began to ponder the twin parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl found in Matthew’s gospel. This unlikely connection to other realms of Christian belief enlarged the horizons of my faith, and it led me into further discoveries.

As I pursued this interest in pearls, I used the same parable in a devotion time with an eighth grade class. Then I turned it over to the students by asking, “What is something today that somebody might sell everything to get?”  A usually reticent boy responded almost immediately, “A sports car.” His answer was the inspiration for a relatable analogy in our current time and place:

Consider with me: The Kingdom of Heaven is like the case of a collector of classic cars, who scours websites and advertisements and travels to dealerships and auto shows every weekend for months. He is seeking the one car that meets all his criteria for design, speed, and luxury. One day, he spots a one-off Bugatti sports car and knows he doesn’t need to see any others. 

He smiles broadly and sells all the other cars in his collection and everything else he owns to get that sports car. 

Being interested in just about everything has opened doors I never would have imagined, including a richer understanding of these short parables Jesus taught.

Header photo by Marin Tulard on Unsplash