The Land of PBJ: A Parable for Our Times

Want to explain what it’s like to be a traditionalist in the modern Church?

Photo by Giorgio Trovato

The following parable was written by a friend; with his permission, I share it now for the benefit of readers. It is in fact strangely illuminating.—PAK

In a quiet valley bordered by orchards and golden fields lay the Land of PBJ. From its earliest days, the people had known one simple meal: bread spread with peanut butter and jelly. It was more than food. It was memory, identity, and a shared inheritance handed down from parent to child. The elders spoke of it not as invention, but as something received, something preserved. For generations, no one questioned it.

In those days, the King himself was known to have a deep love for the PBJ. He spoke of it fondly in feasts and gatherings, and it was said no other meal brought him such simple joy. Yet as time passed, the King departed on a long journey beyond the borders of the kingdom, entrusting its daily governance to his Chief Steward until his return.

While the King was away, a group of celebrated chefs arose in the capital. They were clever and imaginative, admired for their skill and boldness. “Why must the sandwich remain as it always has been?” they asked. “Is not the spirit of PBJ greater than its form?”

And so they began to spread mayonnaise where jelly had always been. They presented it with confidence and called it, still, PBJ.

At first, the people were puzzled. Some tasted it and found it strange but intriguing. Others recoiled. Yet the chefs insisted, “It is the same, only better! Now it is adapted for modern man.”

Word of the innovation reached the King’s Chief Steward, who, acting in the King’s absence, gave it his approval. “Let it be known,” he proclaimed, “that this is the New PBJ.”

In the villages, however, a small number of families quietly continued as they always had. They took bread, spread peanut butter, and added jelly—nothing more, nothing less. To them, the matter was not one of taste or preference, but of fidelity. “We have received this,” they would say, “and we do not have the authority to change what was given.”

Yet when they spoke, they did not frame their resistance as opposition to the King or to his Steward. Rather, they would say the Chief Steward had exceeded his mandate, and that true loyalty required holding fast to what the King himself had always loved and taught. “We must do,” they would insist, “what we know the King would want, not merely what the Steward has declared in his absence.”

At first, they were largely ignored, being inconsequential in number. But as time passed, their numbers grew and murmurs began.