The Beauty of John Steinbeck

During literary discussions I have had with many of my friends, the name John Steinbeck always seems to come up. Usually by me. While I do not pretend to have read all, or even a small majority of what he wrote, I still count him as one of my favorite authors. In John Steinbeck, I meet a man who is both deeply realistic (sometimes even despairingly so), but yet seems to hold on to a shred of idealistic hope that somehow humankind can become better than we really are. He is a man who understands the life of the common working man, but by no means portrays his life as simple. His characters lives' are often incredibly complicated, much how we all perceive our own lives to be. His writings grapple with the existential anxieties, joys, and let downs that make up this life in a way that, in my opinion, few other authors do.

I've often said that being a true Californian almost requires one to love Steinbeck. I've joked with friends from Idaho that California produced Steinbeck, but Idaho took Hemingway (Hemingway committed suicide while living in Ketchum, Idaho). For me, California seems to pulse with the spirit of John Steinbeck; or perhaps it is the other way around. Wherever I am in the state of California, I can find something to remind me of Steinbeck. I can scarcely pass by any orchards without being reminded of the trials of the Joad family. I can scarcely hear the word Monterey without images of Cannery Row coming into my head. I can't hear Salinas without an entire plethora of Steinbeck imagery invading my brain. Anything remotely agricultural makes me think of Steinbeck, even up in my northeastern corner of California, which as far as I am aware, Steinbeck never mentioned. However, I often hear his words from "The Grapes of Wrath" about the great diesel tractors tearing up Oklahoma whenever I drive a tractor myself. When I think about the land, I can almost hear it being described in a way that only Steinbeck could do it.

The characters that Steinbeck creates, mostly the agricultural ones, I can imagine vividly. Though the characters he wrote about, and the people that I know are about a century apart, I can catch glimpses of his creations in the people I see everyday in my area. I believe that because Steinbeck worked on ranches in the Salinas area, he was able to give his literary agricultural workers the kind of life that only someone who has spent time among them is able.

His solidarity with the working man is something else that makes him great. It's hard for his works to raise sympathy for the rich and powerful in the world. From what I have read, his best characters are the poor and the working class. Steinbeck was known for this; "The Grapes of Wrath," for example, did draw criticism for what some considered to be a socialist bent. It is true that Steinbeck was associated with communists and leftists, for which he faced some government persecution. However, the working man deserved (and still does) deserve a voice in a world in which the rich and powerful often become so at the expense of the working classes.

Steinbeck's love of the land is also something that draws me to him. He clearly has a respect for the natural beauty of the world, but at the same time he does not come across as deeply anti-agricultural as many environmentalists do (I am not necessarily trying to throw him into the environmentalist camp, as I do not feel I know enough about him to place him anywhere). When he writes about land, he does so in such a way that makes me hate its destruction.

Steinbeck is truly an amazing author. The Nobel Prize in Literature that he was awarded should come as absolutely no surprise to anybody who has even cracked one of his books. I have enjoyed what I have read of his, and look forward to more. What he had to say about culture, people, and the land sixty years ago, still deserves a hearing today. It is my belief that people really do not change, and that history is more cyclic than linear. People still face the same existential anxieties that his characters did. The land is still precious and needs protection from exploitation. The working middle class still do often get the short end of the stick while the rich get richer. Steinbeck still has a lot to say.

Some Theological Reflections on Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Last night I went to see "Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides." To be sure, it was a pretty good movie; I have loved pirates since I was young, and there is something appealing about the life of a free pirate. Who wouldn't want to live a life free from the restraints of law? Who wouldn't enjoy the adventure? Wouldn't finding buried treasure (guarded by ancient Aztec curses, of course) give one's life both pleasure and purpose? All these aspects of piracy lend the life a devilish appeal. And devilish it truly is.

As I watched the movie last night, I thought of something as Jack Sparrow evaded Royal Soldiers for the umpteenth time. I realized that, as a human being, I am sympathizing with the wrong person! The Pirate, Jack Sparrow, should not be the hero. He, after all, is a criminal who lies, cheats, steals, and murders people! The Soldiers, who are portrayed as the enemy in the movie, are actually the ones who we should be rooting for. They, after all, are trying to uphold the rule of law that keeps us safe from people like Jack Sparrow. Yet we still cheer for the pirate. Why? I realize that the pirate exemplifies all human hubris, that is, the pride and arrogance that makes us attempt to ascend toward places that only God should hold. The appeal of the pirate is that he makes his own rules. He is not bound by any rules from heaven or men. He acts solely on his own selfish impulses, and at some level, that is what we all want as human beings.

There is something curious about human nature, that those who are deeply hated criminals at some point in history become heroes many years later. This is the case with figures such as Jesse James, Billy the Kid, even Robin Hood (if he was, indeed a historical figure). As these criminals and evildoers are highly detested for their deeds, we also admire the hubris that exists in all of us, but that they exhibit in a greater manner. As Rene Girard would point out, in the world's great mythologies, a person who is different from the society would often be perceived as bringing some form of evil on the society and would be killed in order to restore peace. This person would be a virtual scapegoat for the community. However, over time, as the people remembered the act of violence they performed to remove the contagion from their midst, the person would often become "divinized," in a sense. Often the characters who fulfill the role of the scapegoat in a mythology end up as gods of some sort. That, I believe, is what we sometimes do with characters like pirates or stagecoach robbers. These characters, whether truly historical, or simply archetypes of historical characters become victims of the system in our eyes. They truly did do the sorts of things that disrupted the peace of the community, and in most cases, we exacted violence against them to remove them and restore peace (I am not making a comment on whether or not the violence used against them was just or unjust, I am simply stating the fact). After they are dead, we vindicate them, not by making them into gods like the ancients did, but by overlooking the truly heinous nature of their crimes and making them out to be heroes who stand for lofty ideals such as freedom or liberty.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4, like all movies which celebrate pirates, gunslingers, gangsters, or any other type of criminal is simply what human beings have done for thousands of years. Even though as Christians we confess that the cross has revealed the hubris and sin of humankind, it is still alive in the world. When we watch movies about pirates or bank robbers, we see what we all want in our sin. When we look at the cross, we see the world's only truly innocent victim (who was accused as a criminal, remember) whose death reveals and triumphs over our sin. The vindication of the innocent Jesus in his resurrection is much greater than the vindication we give to criminals whom we rightly accuse and wrongly divinize. We must recognize this in our entertainment and also in our own selves.

My Translation of the Beatitudes

I decided to translate the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 from Greek this morning. This is my translation that I did using the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament and Walter Bauer's Greek-English Lexicon. I tried to make this translation as faithful to the original text as possible, while communicating theological meaning that is not always clear from a strictly literal translation. On some of the beatitudes, I wrote them out using multiple words and descriptions where in the Greek text, Matthew used only one word. The reason for this is that to get the fullest meaning of what Matthew probably had in mind, I have had to use multiple English words. By no means do I consider this a scholarly translation, but something more along the lines of the NASB version and the Message.

And seeing the crowds, he went up on a hill, and sitting down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them saying,
"Blessed are those lacking in spiritual worth,
For theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.
Blessed are those who grieve and mourn,
For they will be comforted,
Blessed are the gentle,
For the will posses the land.
Blessed are those who are intensely hungry and intensely thirsty for justice and righteousness,
For they will experience satisfaction.
Blessed are those concerned about those in need,
For they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are those whose hearts are clean from moral guilt,
For they will see God.
Blessed are those who reconcile,
For they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
For theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.
Blessed are you when you are mocked and persecuted, and spoken all kinds of evil about you because of me. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for your recognition by God will be great in the heavens, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.