One of the luxuries of living the way I do right now is that I get to read a lot. At any given time, I'm reading several different books: currently by my bed, there is a Daniel Silva novel, a collection of Fred Craddock sermons in book form, David Mamet's "The Secret Knowledge,'' and I'm reading through the book of Jeremiah.
I think the reason I tend to read multiple books at the same time is to make each of them last longer. I love starting a new book; love being drawn into a good book; and begin to dread it when I cross that mid-point where I am closer to the end of the book than the beginning.
What is really cool, though, is when things I'm reading seem to tie together.
I had one of those experiences the other day.
I was reading in Jeremiah, where the prophet is railing against the sins of his countrymen (which is pretty much all of Jeremiah's writings, come to think of it). But this one verse struck me: Jeremiah 5:27-28 says, "... they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor. ..."
What struck me was that line, "they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it." It would appear that the rich and powerful mentioned did indeed go about pleading the case of the fatherless, which would be a good thing. But they apparently did not do so to "win" their case.
So why did they do it? Why make a great show of standing up for someone when you're really not intent upon "winning?"
That's when I came across a quote by a writer with whom I am not familiar, Eric Hoffer, who wrote: "A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business."
There are a lot of ways to go with that, but reading the two passages in the same day created a connection for me.
Maybe this is a stretch (but it is my blog), but I started wondering who those people are whose own business might be so meaningless that they start trying to mind the affairs of others.
Who in our world often seems to want to tell the rest of us how to live? How about the so-called "elite" - the children and grandchildren of the ultra wealthy (the Kennedys come to mind; the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts as in the form of CNN's Anderson Cooper).
It's almost as if, since their future security had already been established by the hard work of their fathers or grandfathers or great-grandfathers, what was there for them to do but look around them and decide they know how the rest of us ought to live?
There is nothing these people can do that lives up to match the enormous accomplishments of their heritage, yet they have unlimited opportunities. And as Hoffer also wrote, "Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a lack of opportunities,'' and very often those people born to great privilege decide they make their mark by "helping mankind," - a good idea, except that they seem to always end upworking against the very beliefs or traits that drove their ancestors to levels of success that allowed their progeny the opportunity to be bored.
So you get the descendants of great capitalists attacking capitalism; you get children of great wealth-makers attacking people who are trying to create their own great wealth.
The history of revolutions is not of poor people rising up to throw off their supposed shackles; poor people are too busy trying to make something of their lives to start a revolution. No, it is almost always the ideas of the children of privilege who decide it is their calling to stir up the masses to revolution.
Karl Marx was born to a wealthy family (his mother's side of the family eventually founded Phillips Electronics), and lived basically as a leech off of Engels. Mao's father started out as a poor peasant who worked his way up to becoming a prosperous farmer. Castro was the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer, and while there was stigma attached to that, Castro's father did pull strings to get young Fidel a quality education.
Anyway, I'm not writing a book on this. Those are just off the top of my head. I'm kind of just thinking out loud.
After the Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania, the Andrew Carnegie crowd decided it was the responsibility of the wealthy to look after the less-fortunate (perhaps penance for their role - real or imagined - in the cause of that disastrous flood). But of course, "looking after'' too often meant "looking down on," even if they'd never admit it.
So the question becomes, do these people really take up their causes to win, or just to satisfy their own need to feel they matter?
Now, the problem with all this is that all of us are called to get involved - feeding the hungry, providing shelter to the homeless, visiting prisoners, treating the aliens among us with respect.
So where's does the line get crossed between caring and, as Jeremiah accuses the wealthy, "not pleading the case of the fatherless to win it?"
Maybe when we're actively engaged in creating our own lives while working to help those around us in their lives along the way. That should, theoretically, keep us from feeling superior; after all, we recognize we're all in need together, and in approving the condition of the 'fatherless,' we make our own lives better as well.
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