Lorelei Shrugged

I had the opportunity to practice my grandfatherly skills during a trip to visit my granddaughter. 

 We do not share many physical resemblances but as you can see we both have the same take on the world.  I spent time with her and then returned home while Barb went down for a longer visit and I spent some time visiting our parents (3 of them) who live in a retirement home/nursing facility.  That physical and emotional location – involved with babies and the elderly on a personal basis -  leads me to my criticism of what is rapidly becoming an intellectual and political activity in these United States: appreciating the thought of Ayn Rand. 

While watching the obligatory talks from Wayne Dyer during a local PBS fundraising event I heard him say something like:  “It is important to speak on behalf of the people not in the room.”  I believe that to be correct.  I believe that to be correct and a moral duty when the others in the room are speaking of those absent in derogatory and mean spirited ways.  There are no Objectivists in the room with me – but I do not have to go far to find them.  They show up whenever I watch and listen to political commentary.

What does not show up, or to be more precise, who does not show up, in the novels of Ayn Rand are babies and old people.  In his remarkable review of Atlas Shrugged, Whittaker Chambers notes:  Yet from the impromptu and surprisingly gymnastic matings of the heroine and three of the heroes, no children — it suddenly strikes you — ever result. The possibility is never entertained.  Children and old people are not able to strive and succeed and dominate and fashion their own lives.  Maybe in their future and maybe in their past – but now they need assistance.  Someone has to put the welfare of those two classes of people above their own and care for them.  We call that self-sacrifice.

One of the remarkable things I have noted is how many folks who call themselves Christian espouse the philosophy of Ayn Rand at the same time.  I have not been able to discern how that works – what about the constant reference to the widows and orphans and sojourners within your gate (that would be the old, the needy young, and the immigrants) as being those who God wants us to protect.

It is true that big “gummint” may not be the way to care for them, but it seems to me that the question is not should we care for those folks, but rather how.  There is an interesting essay in one of the Christian Century blogs that invites that conversation rather than the one we are now having. 

Who is in your room, or your heart and mind, when you consider how to live your life?

What makes you shrug as if to dump things off?  What makes bend over and pick things up to help carry them?  Or is it who or whom instead of what?

Where in the bible does it say ...

God helps those who help themselves

God only gives us what are strong enough to handle

I have to accept it and live with it, it is God's will

Money is the root of all evil

Do you know what each of those famous verses from the bible has in common?  What they have in common is that none of them are from the bible.

For many of the weeks  this summer I plan to take a famous verse from the bible that is not in the bible and examine it.  Most of those verses impart wisdom or truth, of a sort.  But what sort of truth?  And how much wisdom? 

I believe that proverbial wisdom – and by that I mean sayings such as the ones listed above – is mostly true.  Not absolutely true, but mostly true.  Robert Fulghum in his book Maybe (Maybe Not)  has a collection of proverbial sayings that stand in opposition to each other, sort of:  Look before you leap and He who hesitates is lost.  Or how about:  Two heads are better than one  and If you want something done right, do it yourself.   Properly explained all four of those are true.   Of course, they are all also false.

This Sunday I begin with:   God helps those who help themselves.

Have you found that to be true in your own life?  Have you suggested to others that they practice the “truth and wisdom” in that saying?

What other advice have you been given that parallels “God helps those who help themselves?”

The Gospel reading that we lectionary preachers are using this week is from Mark. 

He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, ²⁷and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
³⁰He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; ³²yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

The first parable seems to point to the power of God dong things on its own.  The second is traditionally interpreted to invite us to use the small grain of faith that is in us to do great things.

One of the blogs I read has these two stories.  Like the Fulghum proverbs, they stand opposed to each other.

1.The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, began her orphanage with such a vision. She told her superiors, "I have three pennies and a dream From God to build an orphanage." A dream and three pennies represented resources as small as a mustard seed. "Mother Teresa," her superiors chided gently, "you cannot build an orphanage with three pennies...with three pennies you can't do anything." "I know," she said, smiling, "but with God and three pennies I can do anything."

There we have it    we just do a little, start with a little, and God multiplies the effort magnificently.

2. Old story about a man who bought a house with an overgrown garden. The weeds had long since taken over the garden and it was a mess. But slowly the man began to clear the weeds, till the soil and plant the seeds. Finally, he had made it into a showcase garden. One day the minister came to visit, and when he saw the beautiful flowers and plants, he observed, "Well, friend, you and God have done a marvelous job on this garden." To which the homeowner replied, "You should have seen it when God had it by himself."

God does not do much – it is we  who have to work the field and make it happen.

Which one of those tales reflects your life?