Monthly Archive for April, 2009

Why do the nations rage?

Likely a rhetor­i­cal ques­tion for the psalmist but I want to let that ques­tion stand for a moment. I can clearly remem­ber a time when I was at my grandma’s apart­ment prob­a­bly in junior high or younger. A few of my rel­a­tives were gath­ered watch­ing TV. As we flipped through chan­nels we came across Much Music or MTV and there was a music video for some metal band like Slayer. It was heavy, hard music and the video was of a large group of peo­ple in a cage and they were rag­ing within it; shak­ing, rock­ing the cage as the music played. I can remem­ber my uncle say­ing some­thing like, “See the rebel­lion of this gen­er­a­tion.” What he did not do was ask why were they rag­ing, against what or who were they rag­ing? This is not a ques­tion to jus­tify actions because there is lit­tle we can do well when gripped by anger but the ques­tion should give us pause and help us to think of the inter­nal and exter­nal envi­ron­ment that nur­tures anger.

John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath can be read at least in part as a med­i­ta­tion on the ori­gins and com­plex­i­ties of anger. The story begins in Okla­homa at the start of the Great Depres­sion. The Joad fam­ily attempts to hold on to their farm but as con­di­tions worsen they become allured to the promise of land and work in Cal­i­for­nia. As they travel across the Amer­i­can south­west towards Cal­i­for­nia they begin to see how deep and wide­spread the hard­ships are for other Amer­i­cans. Then as they draw closer to the promised land of Cal­i­for­nia some of the fam­ily mem­bers begin to won­der whether there will be enough work for every­one. And sure enough arriv­ing in Cal­i­for­nia they are greeted by mul­ti­tudes, waves of other fam­i­lies who were also hop­ing for work and a new life. Stein­beck presents the mount­ing des­per­a­tion of those who are scram­bling for any type of work they can find. He describes the wealthy farms and busi­nesses prof­it­ing off of these peo­ple. He paints a pic­ture of the hos­til­ity that the locals showed towards these for­eign­ers who threaten to take their jobs. These migrant peo­ple were pressed on all sides. The locals fought the migrants out of fear and anger for los­ing what lit­tle they had. The migrants fought to under bid each other to secure what lit­tle work there was. Stein­beck writes,

“The roads were crowded with men rav­en­ous for work, mur­der­ous for work. And the com­pa­nies, the banks worked at their own doom and they did not know it. The fields were fruit­ful, and starv­ing men moved on the roads.… The great com­pa­nies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line. And money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for black­lists, for drilling. On the high­ways the peo­ple moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment.”

But anger is not the final word in Steinbeck’s vision. Like the in the psalms rage is not given infi­nite space to con­sume and destroy. Rage instead is released into the con­fines of liturgy. And within this space it is trans­formed. This is the sort of trans­for­ma­tion that Tom Joad expe­ri­ences in The Grapes of Wrath. The family’s and indeed the country’s sit­u­a­tion spi­rals down­ward through­out the novel. Ten­sions and anger increase as work and pay decrease. The Joad family’s friend Casy, an old preacher, who trav­elled with them started to orga­nize some work­ers to try and strike so that they can hold out for a live­able wage. Farm own­ers caught wind of this and begin to hunt those orga­niz­ing strikes. One night Tom finds Casy who is try­ing lead a group of migrant work­ers in a strike.

A group of men come and sur­round them and even­tu­ally kill Casy. Tom losses con­trol of him­self becomes enraged and kills one of those men in return. The pure real­ity of his anger that cul­mi­nated in that moment lashed out in death against that man. In fear of the trou­ble that he would bring to his fam­ily Tom goes into hid­ing. His fam­ily is still able to bring him food but he no longer inter­acts with the out­side world, the world struc­tured in anger and vio­lence. Tom’s hid­ing spot acts like a monk’s cell as he is forced into a type of reflec­tive patience think­ing about what is going on around him. As he says later to his mother, “you get thinkin’ a lot when you ain’t movin’ aourn.”

Towards the end of the book Tom’s mother brings him some food and she is invited into his small den. Tom begins to artic­u­late to her a vision of how the peo­ple could restore their qual­ity of life and work together again. Tom’s mother warns him that this will be dan­ger­ous and he might end up like Casy did. Tom does not claim to know all the details of what should unfold but knows that his life needs to be offered in the ser­vice of another order. The words and actions of the unortho­dox preacher Casy and the cir­cum­stances of the world around him began to form a type of litany in the den where he stayed.

He knew that his life was now in the order of the peo­ple not of power. His anger was trans­formed into liturgy, a higher order­ing. In the cli­max of the con­ver­sa­tion Tom’s mother is con­cerned about him going off on his own. She asks how she will know whether he is okay or not, alive or dead. Tom laughs uneasily and says,

“Well, maybe its like Casy says, a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big on – an’ then – ” Then what, Tom’s mother asks. “Then it don’ mat­ter. Then I’ll be aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where – wher­ever you look. Wher­ever they’s a fight so hun­gry peo­ple can eat, I’ll be there. Wher­ever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be the way guys yell when they’re mad an – I’ll be the way kids laugh when they’re hun­gry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build – why, I’ll be there.”

Tom’s anger was trans­formed so that his life now became a part of a new order. This is the vision of Psalm 2. There is an anointed one of God, a child of God, already enthroned in this new world. This King­dom is achieved not through the imma­ture or vio­lent out­burst of anger but through enter­ing into com­mu­nion with God and neighbour.

So why do the nations rage? We do we rage? Our anger can lead us to con­trol and vio­lence. Instead, in our anger we should not sin. Like Tom may we find our­selves drawn or even forced out­side the world that fuels our anger so that in patience God would trans­form us to be love in the midst of those things we once hated. That we might be peace in the midst of all that rages. That the anointed one of God would be rule in our hearts and to the end of the earth.