Jesus spoke in parables, his disciples didn't - they preached about him and they told it straight.

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Seeing the desolation in places, all those things bring to mind some of the parables that come to life in the scriptures.

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But surely there is a direct line of descent from James Thurber (1894-1961), many of whose madcap sketches and parables draw on his childhood in Columbus, Ohio and the inherently uneasy relationship between men and women and the comparative sublimity of dogs (even those that bite).

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