If The Sign Doesn't Fit...

A dozen years ago or so, we visited Sedona Arizona and found ourselves one day at a chapel built into sandstone cliffs. 

Chapel of the Holy Cross

Photo credit CC BY-SA 4.0,

Just outside the chapel there was a sign that struck us as a good fit for old folks like us. So we had a picture taken.

Here is the sign enlarged so you can read it. 

Imagine the grandkids treating the old folks like playground equipment. That fits.

Some years later, the sign is an even better fit. Having lost bits of myself in various surgeries, I am reluctant to visit the doctor, although I will submit to diagnostic imaging.

If the sign fits, it's ours.

Of course, we were thinking of the sign allegorically rather than literally. We as readers are predisposed to make signs fit our own situation, reading meanings into the words that were not intended by the author. That process is called eisegesis.  It brings the message alive, keeping it relevant to changing circumstances.

We can guess at the original meaning of this sign as intended by the curators of the chapel. They wanted to preserve the sandstone against accumulated damage by thousands of visitors. Looking back to the original meaning is known as exegesis. Original meanings tend to be parochial, applying to the time and place in which they originate. If we know the meaning of a message where and when it originated, we can make sense of its progress into the present. Eisegesis and exegisis make good partners as we seek understanding of messages from the past.

If a message has a more extensive meaning beyond the author's place and time, it might be considered prophecy, an intuitive knowing that transcends ordinary experience. How about a prophetic sign for 2023 applicable worldwide for the foreseeable future?

A prophecy typically doesn't quite fit. It leads us a step beyond our familiar worldview. In this proposed prophecy, if the notion of God not caring doesn't fit, perhaps we could shift our God-thoughts from the familiar Father-God, taking care of things for those he loves, to a distributed God-in-us, moving us to take care of things we love with gratitude and restraint. 

God's plan is that we make a plan
and get to work on it.

I don't mean to exclude readers whose thinking is nontheistic in our increasingly secular culture. This applies to them too. Try something like this.

With concern beyond self and imagination beyond limitations, we maintain the system within which unselfishness and imagination have evolved. Let's make it last. Otherwise it will evolve without us.

Does that fit?
No?
OK. Your turn.
Make your own sign.

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Video: visit Our Garden