In times like this, I find it helpful to read about other folks who are in similar situations.
During the 1930’s our country was going through the great depression. These were tough times. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced because of drought and poverty. Families in places like Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas had it about as bad as anybody has had it in this country, and in order to survive, most of them had to pull up stakes and head to Washington, or California to try to find work. It was one of the most trying times this country has ever known. Things seemed scarce. And in scarce and fearful times people do terrible things, like close borders and turn our backs on the least of these. At one point during this time, California got so desperate and fearful of what was coming that they closed their borders to their own American brothers and sisters. Cruel times indeed.
One of the greatest novels of this time was a novel written by John Steinbeck called “The Grapes of Wrath”. This week, I found an audio of the Grapes of Wrath play (you can find a video of this play online, by the way). As I was listening to it, I was captured by one character in the play.
You’ll get a kick out of this...it was the preacher. (Sorry...I am who I am) He goes by Casy in the play. Back in the day he was a high rolling traveling evangelist, but when we find him in the book and the play, we find, instead, a man who has lost “his religion”. A man whose been walking in the wilderness, doing some “deeper down thinking”. Below is a table grace he shared for the Joad family right before they left their homestead and headed out to California:
Granma: Grace fist. Grace fust.
Grampa: Oh, that preacher. Oh, he’s all right. I always like him since I seen him... (he winks lecherously)
Granma: Shut up, you sinful ol’ goat.
Casy: I got to tell you, I ain’t a preacher no more.
Granma: Say her.
Casy: If me jus’ bein’ glad to be here an’ bein’ thankful for people that’s kind and generous, if that’s enough---why, I’ll say that kinda grace.
Granma: Say her. An’ get in a word about us going to California.
Casy: I been thinkin’. I been in the hills thinkin’, almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to think his way out of a mess of troubles.
Granma: Pu-raise Gawd!
Casy: I ain’t sayin’ I’m like Jesus. 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.
Granma: Hallelujah!
Casy: An’ I got thinkin’, on’y it wasn’t thinkin’, it was deeper down than thinkin’. I got thinkin’ how there was the moon an’ the stars an’ the hills, an’ there was me lookin’ at ‘em, an’ we wasn’t separate no more. We was one thing. An’ that one thing was holy.
Granma: Oh, yes. Pu-raise Gawd! Hallelujah!
Casy: I got thinkin’ how we was holy when we was one thing, an’ (hu)-mankind 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’ and draggin’ and fightin’. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they’re all workin’ together--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. I can’t say no grace like I use’ ta say. I’m glad of the holiness of supper. I glad there’s love here. That’s all. (pause) Looks like I got your supper cold.
A couple things about this prayer stand out to me.
One: holiness is an experience we have when we are working to stay connected. When we work to include people...all people...in our community.
Two: Casy didn’t see just humanity as connected, he saw holiness come only when we stay connected to all of creation: “the moon an’ the stars an’ the hills, an’ there was me lookin’ at ‘em, an’ we wasn’t separate no more. We was one thing. An’ that one thing was holy.”
Throughout the book and play, the Joad family, in all of their struggles to stay alive, keep a fierce commitment to including others. They allow “the preacher” to come along with them even though they know they don’t have enough food. They continually do everything they can to help others. They desperately try to move the "unholy" and divisive world they live in from "unholiness" to "holiness".
Now that's a holiness I can get on board with. How about you?
In these times, I ask that each of us do the same, as we work to make this world “holy” again.
Your friend and pastor, still doing some deep thinkin’ out here in the wilderness of 2025, Brook
Hi Brook,
Thanks for that insightful essay. This "brave" new world is pretty scary, all of our laws and norms being cast aside by men with too much money. Masters of the Universe, indeed, and I worry for family and good friends who do not fit their idea of what an American should be or look like.
From that little excerpt you quoted I think that the Joads' act of holiness was inclusion, finding community, creating community. That's why I started coming back to church, it's why I sit and sew with a bunch of women on most Tuesday mornings, almost all of whom are appalled by what's being done and what's coming. Slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.
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