Great Regulars: Only the grain will be saved,

and that will be ground into flour and used to make bread.

Taking into consideration all of the components of this fairly complex metaphorical structure can lead to some arresting provisional conclusions. It would, for example, seem to suggest that the point of my being is not I what I am now, but rather what can be made of the fruit (or grain) that I bear. This is rather different from the conventional religious view, which is that I am in this life on a kind of probation, at the end of which I will be judged to have measured up or not and treated either as the cockle or the wheat.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Why religious discussions usually lead nowhere

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