Jan
8
What did Karl Marx know that we need to learn?
Who were the 100 most influential people in history? Astrophysicist Michael H. Hart gave the world his list in a 1987 book, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History.
It’s an interesting read of short essays, beginning with Hart’s number one choice, Muhammad, and ending with Leonardo da Vinci, who came in as an honorable mention/near miss. (Remember, this book pre-dates Dan Brown.) Jesus came in #3 on Hart’s list and people I’m ashamed to admit I don’t even recognize fell into the bottom 50. People like Ashoka (#52), Mani (#83) and Niels Bohr (#100).
Of course, Hart might make changes in his list based on the 25 years since his book was published. Steve Jobs, anybody?
In 11th place is Karl Marx, who developed economic theories that became the basis for Communism. Of course, Communism has taken quite a hit since 1987. But at the time the book was written, Communism seemed to have carved out a permanent place in the world economy.
Still, Hart made the point that not all of Marx’s predictions proved to be true; he zeroed in on two. Marx apparently predicted that in capitalist economies:
- working people would become progressively poorer as time went on;
- the middle class would be eliminated, with only a few rising into the capitalist class.
Hart wrote, in 1987, that neither of these predictions about capitalism had proven to be accurate. In 2012, I can only say, “Wow.”
Maybe it’s time to read Das Kapital again, if only to find out what we might be up against as capitalism lurches into at least two of the very pitfalls Karl Marx predicted a century and a half ago.
Oct
23
His eyes were beautiful – blue and clear, set in a sun-browned face so lined and leathered that it spoke to the state of his life – homeless – and the length of time it had been so.
But his eyes were luminous.
I know because I looked him directly in those eyes when I rolled down my window and gave him a few dollars. When I did, he gave me the gift of a smile that rose up from some sweet spot inside him and came to rest in his eyes. I’m reading a lot into those few seconds, I know. It was that kind of moment.
As I drove away, I had a pious thought that tries to pass itself off as gratitude but is actually more about keeping myself feeling secure within the confines of my safely-mortgaged lives.
“There but for the grace…”
The thought turned sour before I finished the phrase.
Oh, really? Like God’s grace doesn’t extend to that man with the smile in his eyes? Or to the frazzled woman standing at the bus stop wearing a pair of worn-to-the-pavement shoes? Or the 24 children who will die of hunger around the world in the two minutes it takes to read what I’ve written? What about the bright young people who should have brilliant futures ahead of them but will nevertheless die of cancer or addiction or suicide or texting-while-driving? God doesn’t provide grace for those people?
The God I believe in provides grace for everyone. And when I can drive away from a homeless man on the street and think somehow that God’s grace protects me from a fate like his, I wonder if I am living not in a state of grace but in a state of arrogance.
I do not believe God showers grace only on those of us who pray fervently enough or worship in the right church or read the right holy literature. I don’t know why some of us seem blessed and some of us have lives that look like a train wreck from hell. But I believe grace rains down on all of us.
Maybe some of us turn our backs on that grace.
Maybe some of us take the grace that’s available to us and use it to build walls that separate us from them.
Maybe some of us do the best we can to grow into that grace, knowing that it’s okay if we never quite get it right.
Maybe for some people, grace shows up as having the humility to ask for handouts on the street. And to do so with clear blue eyes that smile a blessing on someone with plenty, who might then be lifted out of her self-absorption long enough to remember that she does not have a corner on God’s grace.
Oct
11
When hopelessness turns to hopefulness
Is it really possible that some people don’t understand why other people are gathering to voice their dissatisfaction in cities across the U.S.?
Agree or not with the people who are gathering under the Occupy Wall Street banner, the reasons are so simple. The reasons are economic and political. The reasons are related to social justice. The reasons are the anger and fear and hopelessness growing like a cancer where there is hunger or joblessness or empty pockets. Others have said what needs to be said about those reasons better than I can. But I see another reason, a reason beyond the economics and the anger.
When I look at people taking to the streets, I see so much more than fear and hopelessness. I also see a hopefulness born of a collective belief that sooner or later in our nation something righteous always wins.
We often seem to wade through ugliness to get there. We are a nation built on bloodshed and hatred, among other things. But our story is also the story of a people who always believe something greater waits on the other side of the ugliness. And we are always hopeful about that righteous prize. We believe in it beyond reason, even when ugliness stares us straight in the eyes.
Claiming not to understand why people are discontented in today’s economic and social climate smacks of contempt, and contempt so easily leads to actions far worse than simply standing up to be heard. Worse has happened, other places and other times, and if we think it cannot happen here again — as it did in Birmingham or at Kent State or in a 1920s mill village right down the road from where I sit today – we are not paying attention.
When I see people gathering and I see the gatherings growing, I am hopeful. Because wherever people care enough to believe they can make a difference, sooner or later, something righteous always wins.
(Photo courtesy of Canadian film maker Velcrow Ripper, from his site http://occupylove.org/ )
