I'm reading The Grapes of Wrath right now. I'm still early on, but I love it so far. I decided that I need to do a lot more reading, and I definitely want to make it "significant" reading. I was supposed to read this in an English class in high school, but I either BS-ed my way through it or just didn't remember it.
Anyway: I'm at the point where Tom and Casy (the former preacher) arrive at the Joad family's home just as they are packing to go to California. The family is sitting down to dinner and Granma finds out that a preacher has traveled there with Tom, and she demands a grace before dinner. Casy explains that he's not a preacher anymore, but Granma still insists. And so this happens:
... And on the preacher's face there was a look not of prayer, but of thought; and in his tone not supplication, but conjecture.
"I been thinkin," he said. "I been in the hills, thinkin', almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to this His way out of a mess of troubles."
"Pu-raise Gawd!" Grandma said, and the preacher glanced over at her in surprise.
"Seems like Jesus got all messed up with troubles, and He couldn't figure nothin' out, an' He got to feelin' what the hell good is it all, an' what's the use fightin' and figurin'. Got tired, got good an' tired, an; His sperit all wore out. Jus' about come to the conclusion, the hell with it. An' so He went off into the wilderness."
"A--men," Granma bleated. So many years she had times her responses to the pauses. And it was so many years since she had listend to or wondered at the words used.
"I ain't sayin' I'm like Jesus," the preacher went on. "But I got tired like Him, an' I got mixed up like Him, an' I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin' stuff. Nighttime I'd lay on my back an' look up at the stars; morning I'd set an' watch the sun come up; midday I'd look out from a hill at the rollin' dry country; evenin' I'd foller the sun down. Sometimes I'd pray like I always done. On'y I couldn' figure what I was prayin' to or for. There was the hills, an' there was me, an' we wasn't separate no more. We was one thing. An' that one thing was holy."
"Hallelujah," said Grandma, and she rocked a little, back and forth, trying to catch hold of an ecstasy.
"An' I got thinkin', on'y it wasn't thinkin'. I got thinkin' how we was holy when we was one thing, and' mankin' was holy when it was one thing. An' it on'y got unholy when one mis'able little fella got the bit in his teeth an' run off his own way, kickin' an' draggin' an' fightin'. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they're all workin' together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang --- that's right, that's holy. An' then I got thinkin' I don't even know what I mean by holy." He paused, but the bowed heads stayed down, for they had been trained like dogs to rise at the "amen" signal. "I can't say no grace like I use'ta say. I'm glad of the holiness of breakfast. That's all." (pg. 81, Centennial Edition, Penguin books)
I've been thinking about what Holiness really means since then. I don't have the answers. But I do know that that page of the book calmed me and, just as after Palm Sunday service, my mind didn't have music, phrases, rhythms, nerves, or anything in it. I was actually able to have it be silent, just with a picture of a sunrise.
Thank you, Steinbeck. Thank you God for Steinbeck and his remarkable insight to create a character so complicated and beautiful and simple.
Amen.
Anyway: I'm at the point where Tom and Casy (the former preacher) arrive at the Joad family's home just as they are packing to go to California. The family is sitting down to dinner and Granma finds out that a preacher has traveled there with Tom, and she demands a grace before dinner. Casy explains that he's not a preacher anymore, but Granma still insists. And so this happens:
... And on the preacher's face there was a look not of prayer, but of thought; and in his tone not supplication, but conjecture.
"I been thinkin," he said. "I been in the hills, thinkin', almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to this His way out of a mess of troubles."
"Pu-raise Gawd!" Grandma said, and the preacher glanced over at her in surprise.
"Seems like Jesus got all messed up with troubles, and He couldn't figure nothin' out, an' He got to feelin' what the hell good is it all, an' what's the use fightin' and figurin'. Got tired, got good an' tired, an; His sperit all wore out. Jus' about come to the conclusion, the hell with it. An' so He went off into the wilderness."
"A--men," Granma bleated. So many years she had times her responses to the pauses. And it was so many years since she had listend to or wondered at the words used.
"I ain't sayin' I'm like Jesus," the preacher went on. "But I got tired like Him, an' I got mixed up like Him, an' I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin' stuff. Nighttime I'd lay on my back an' look up at the stars; morning I'd set an' watch the sun come up; midday I'd look out from a hill at the rollin' dry country; evenin' I'd foller the sun down. Sometimes I'd pray like I always done. On'y I couldn' figure what I was prayin' to or for. There was the hills, an' there was me, an' we wasn't separate no more. We was one thing. An' that one thing was holy."
"Hallelujah," said Grandma, and she rocked a little, back and forth, trying to catch hold of an ecstasy.
"An' I got thinkin', on'y it wasn't thinkin'. I got thinkin' how we was holy when we was one thing, and' mankin' was holy when it was one thing. An' it on'y got unholy when one mis'able little fella got the bit in his teeth an' run off his own way, kickin' an' draggin' an' fightin'. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they're all workin' together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang --- that's right, that's holy. An' then I got thinkin' I don't even know what I mean by holy." He paused, but the bowed heads stayed down, for they had been trained like dogs to rise at the "amen" signal. "I can't say no grace like I use'ta say. I'm glad of the holiness of breakfast. That's all." (pg. 81, Centennial Edition, Penguin books)
I've been thinking about what Holiness really means since then. I don't have the answers. But I do know that that page of the book calmed me and, just as after Palm Sunday service, my mind didn't have music, phrases, rhythms, nerves, or anything in it. I was actually able to have it be silent, just with a picture of a sunrise.
Thank you, Steinbeck. Thank you God for Steinbeck and his remarkable insight to create a character so complicated and beautiful and simple.
Amen.