Unlike the other adults of the 327 million Americans, I have
no “bright-line” solution to the mass shootings that plague the United States
at present. I am, though, struck by the coincidence of these latest rampages
and my reading of Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide
by Tony Horwitz.
Horwitz follows the travels of Fredrick Law Olmsted who,
before coming America’s most renown landscape architect, was a journalist who
made a couple of trips through the pre-Civil War South and transmitted his
observations for publication in the fledging New York Times.
May I surprise the reader by saying that Horwitz’s book amazes
in two ways. The first is in the difference between the American South of the
1850s and the American South of today. The second raison d'étonnement is
the similarity between the American South of the 1850s and the American South
of today.
What concerns me most today is Horwitz’s impression of
modern Texas. Let’s just say he isn’t kind in many ways. The most apparent
observation is the hard-headed belief among so many Texans that paradise lies
in a rather unique world. That world stays free from any moral strictures other
than selected (very carefully selected) passages from the Bible, especially selected
parts written by Bronze-Age nomads. If, only: everyone wore guns, the earth
needed no protection from us, the “least of those among us” deserved no help
from us, greed borne aloft by self-reliance was the only worthwhile catalyst
worthy of rule-making, and the only governmental needs were local and national armed
forces necessary to see that no one took our well-deserved wealth from us, the
world would be pleasant. Yes, it would be pleasant indeed.
In other words, as James Madison posited, "If men were
angels, no government would be necessary."
Or, as Texans and most other Southerners seem to believe, “If
we each carried a Glock strapped around our fat asses, there would be no gun
deaths in America.”
Of course, the old South thrived, as Olmsted observed, on
the use of slave labor as the primary foundation for that self-reliance. What must
unnerve thinking people is the number of modern Americans, many with vast amounts of wealth and power such as the late David Koch, who still support slave, or
near-slave labor for individual enrichment.
That brings me to another thought on this day on which we
honor the simple and highly-lauded act of honest labor. And, I won’t forbear
noting that the time to contemplate these thoughts is not provided today by self-reliant
capitalists. It is provided by the blood of organized laborers.
Now, a couple of New Testament parables have always bothered
me. The first is that of The Prodigal Son. I’ll attend it in a moment. The
biggie, though, is the sad story of paying the laborers. You remember the story,
as told in The Gospel of Matthew 20:1-16. As summarized by Matthew L.
Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota:
“The story goes like this: Early in the morning, a landowner
(who seems to represent God in this parable) hires people to work in his
vineyard for the standard daily wage. He hires additional people at 9 a.m.,
noon, 3 p.m. and again at 5 p.m., telling each of these groups that he will
give them “whatever is right.” When the hot workday ends, he first pays the
folks who labored only a single hour the standard daily wage, the same amount
he pledged to those who worked nearly sunup to sundown. When the members of
that full-day crew get to the front of the line, they receive the same amount,
exactly what they were promised.”
Now ain’t that something? Try that with the crew at the
donut shop. But, as Professor Skinner points out, the Galilean’s parables “ …often
include absurd behavior to deliver their message.”
But what in tarnation is the message?
Allow me dive off the high board. I think, see, based on a
fairly close study of the Scriptures, that some parables weren’t designed by
the authors to teach precise moral lessons. Rather, they were written to ward
off disquietude among the early Christian cult members.
In my view. The Galilean is voiced to assure early converts
that any "laborer" who accepts the invitation to the work in the
vineyard, i.e. the Kingdom of Heaven, no matter how late in the day, will
receive an equal reward with those who have been faithful the longest. Case
closed.
Of course, the parable of the prodigal son not only confused
me, as the oldest son in our family. It really pissed me off, for reasons
obvious to anyone who knew my family. "Work? We don’t need no stinkin’ work. Go
have fun, they’ll take you back."
Then one day I realized that the parable wasn’t about children
at all. It was about apostates. Should the early church groups re-admit those
who had strayed from the righteous path but who wished to “return to the fold”
and escape the horrors of a greedy and self-reliant secular world? Muslims can kill
them. Christians must take them back into the fold.
I think the Amish practice of Rumspringa is somewhat
mythically viewed as a time for adolescents to experiment with sex, drugs, and
other worldly pleasures. At any rate, a period of absence from religious
constraint may simply represent a socio-religious rite of passage. It makes
more sense than coddling wastrels.
That’s all my head-spinning for today. I think I’ll go listen
to some Bach, and offer thanks for having been a member of a family with a long
tradition of being workers that needed not be ashamed of their labors.
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| A whip or a good Glock will keep her from taking what is rightfully mine. |
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