Wednesday, November 30, 2016

The Book of Job

After the David Story, Hilldale "Great Books 101" course moves onto the ancient story of Job. Some say it is the earliest book in the Bible chronologically. Since it covered just about the whole book, I did not read the excerpt provided from Hillsdale. I had just read Job earlier this year, so I listened to the lecture, but I did not re-read the book.

The lecture was fascinating. Dr. Sundahl made the point that Job was beset by the "conventional wisdom" of his friends and the society's understanding of God as a God of retributive justice. That is the good are rewarded and the bad punished. But God is doing something else behind the scenes and He wants Job to catch a glimpse of it.

The story opens in a courtroom of sorts with the Devil going before God and asking to be allowed to strike at Job. Although Job is not aware of this, he does feel a sense that his situation is undeserved. He finally gets to the conclusion that he needs an advocate, someone to plead his case before a holy God, before Whom, he cannot be allowed to stand. In Job, we see a celebration of someone who speaks out against the common perception of God and demands that He live up to what His sense of grace and mercy require.

Finally, God reveals Himself to be bigger and more inscrutable than even Job imagined. Job does not get his answers. He does not get his arbiter, yet. That is to come. But he gets to see God. He knows God is just and will ultimately provide for the unfairness Job has experienced. Unbeknownst to Job, God, "in the fullness of time" will send His Son, Jesus. In Him, all of Job's questions will be answered. He will not only advocate for Job, but he will pay the price for all of Job's sins. He will bring about ultimate Justice, as well as Mercy and Grace.

The book ends enigmatically, leaving Job face down before God and with no answers. This is because it is not the end of the story. The best is yet to come.


Discussion Questions from the course:


1 According to Dr. Sundahl, what is the job of the Book of Job? 

The job of the book of Job is to upend conventional wisdom. The book of Job must be Christianized to make any sense. Without the knowledge that Christ will come and redeem mankind, the book seems random and unexplainable. God seems capricious and malevolent. He is playing with a man's life for no apparent reason. But what if, God is actually revealing to Job the need for a Savior? Dr. Sundahl points out that Job comes to the conclusion that he has no arbiter, no way to argue his case and no one to argue it for him. God has given the Jewish people a prelude to what is to come. He has shown that their conventional idea of a God who simply rewards the good and punishes the bad is flawed and misses true picture of who God is. God knows that, contrary to Job's assertion, none of us are blameless. Life is full of injustice because Satan roams to and fro. All of humanity is in need of a Redeemer, so Job is given insight into this need to enlighten the people of Israel.  
2 How is the Book of Job connected with the wisdom of the New Testament? 

Wisdom is defined by the ancients as understanding the nature of cause and effect. In the book of Job, conventional wisdom is that bad behavior leads to bad results and vice versa for good behavior. But God sees a bigger picture. "No one is righteous, no not one." Therefore our sin has caused us to need a Savior. The effect is the coming of Christ. The New Testament reveals that true wisdom is that which comes from God above. His ways and and His thoughts are wise. We are blind men stumbling in the dark compared to His wisdom. This is greater wisdom and more true than what Job's friends have been spouting. Without Christ in the picture, we are doomed to a false belief about the nature of sin and God's justice. Jesus Christ becomes the Wisdom of God personified.
3 What does the metaphor of the tree have to do with hope?

Job talks about a tree that can be cut down, yet return. Conventional wisdom says man dies and is no more or goes o the place of Sheol. But the New Testament introduces the concept of Resurrection. This is what Job is tapping into with his tree metaphor. He’s thinking that man should be able to rise again like a tree after being cut down. 
4 What can the Book of Job teach us about wisdom today?

Today we see Job as a man given a glimpse of God’s ultimate plan and Truth as he struggles to understand what is happening. I think this can teach us that true wisdom can be found in the struggle. As we wrestle with questions of ultimate justice, God can help us to catch a glimpse of what He is up to.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry


I started reading Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry based on the recommendation of someone I respect, but only know through Facebook. She is the mother of a friend of my daughter's. She has opened a classical Christian private school. In short, I want to be her when I grow up. So when she says she is reading a good book, it goes on my list.

I had no idea what to expect. With a name like, "Jayber Crow," it could be anything. I didn't know if it was fiction or non-fiction, biography or philosophy, historical or modern. It turns out to be the sweet fictional "life story of Jayber Crow, barber, of the Port William Membership, as written by himself." 

We learn he is old and near the end of his life at the beginning of the book. It is unclear who he is telling his story to or why. He is never famous, he never accomplishes anything that would cover him in glory. He lives an ordinary bachelor life as a barber in a tiny town. However, he is thoughtful and reflective. Being a barber gives him access to all the townspeople and their secrets. He watches and remarks, but never really gets involved. He is a consummate outsider all his days, yet he is in the middle of life in the small town like no one else.

I'm not sure if the book or its author is supposed to embody Christian values. Jayber considers going into the ministry for a time, but has to give it up due to serious doubts. Yet the book does not mock faith, and Jayber's life's journey seems to be finding answers to the doubts he expresses early in life. In fact, a respected theologian tells him that it may take his whole life, and possibly longer, to find the answers Jayber is looking for. 

However, the real heart of this slow, meandering story is Jayber's love for Mattie Chatham. He is a little older than her and he arrives in the town as the young barber, watching 14-year-old Mattie walk home from school. She eventually marries the town's basketball star, who, in Jayber's opinion, is wholly undeserving of her. After seeing her husband, Troy, out with another woman, Jayber makes a solemn, yet unsanctified, vow to Mattie, alone and in his own mind. He will be the faithful husband she deserves. For the rest of his life, while never telling her of his undying love, he sets out to prove that someone like Mattie can have a man who will sacrifice all for her, who will love her until the day she dies. 

This odd, but achingly beautiful, love story begins to parallel Christ's love for us. This message is so subtle, it can be missed, but I believe it to be the theme of the book. By the end of the book, Jayber is at peace, he has developed a secret, yet very chaste and innocent, relationship with Mattie when they meet accidentally and randomly from time to time at a secret spot on her property. When her husband sells the land she so cherished to developers as she lies dying the hospital, Jayber mourns with her in her hospital room. It is the closest they come to acknowledging any feelings for each other. 

I believe there is beauty hidden in this book. It is a slow tale, told in small vignettes. I think if I re-read it, I would see even further into the author's purposes in writing it. I believe his argument is that "while we were yet sinners, God loved us..." Jayber experiences and displays the most unselfish kind of love imaginable. He is faithful to a "wife" who barely acknowledges of his existence. He loves with no hope or expectation of it ever being returned. Along the way, Jayber describes the beautiful nature surrounding him. I'm sure there is meaning in this. He tells of the townspeople with all their faults and foibles. Yet despite the hurt and harm some of them cause, he can never bring himself to hate. Even Mattie's brash, selfish, and arrogant husband earns Jayber's sympathy. 

I suppose Berry is saying that we are all fallen and flawed, but we are all loved. That love is undeserved and beyond comprehension or even full knowledge. The townspeople never knew the depth of Jayber's feelings or insights into their lives. He was outside. Of but not in. Yet he knew them more intimately than they knew themselves or each other. 

If this is a Christian work, it is perfect in its subtlety and nuance. 

     Section that I love!
     But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time. It does not accept that limit. Of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love is always more than a little strange here. It is not explainable or even justifiable. It is itself the justifier. We do not make it. If it did not happen to us, we could not imagine it. It includes the world and time as a pregnant woman includes her child whose wrongs she will suffer and forgive. It is in the world but is not altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us here.

     Maybe love fails here, I thought, because it cannot be fulfilled here. And then I saw something that a normal life with a normal marriage might never have allowed me to see. I saw that Mattie was not merely desirable, but desirable beyond the power of time to show. Even if she had been my wife, even if I had been in the usual way her husband, she would have remained beyond me. I could not have desired her enough. She was a living soul and could be loved forever. Like every living creature, she carried in her the presence of eternity. That was why, as she grew older, I saw in her always the child she had been, and why, looking at her when she was a child, I felt the influence of the woman she would be. That is why, in marrying one another, we mortals say “till death.” We must take love to the limit of time, because time cannot limit it. A life cannot limit it. Maybe to have it in your heart all your life in this world, even while it fails here, is to succeed. Maybe that is enough.

     And so there were times when I knew (I knew beyond any proof) that the faith that carried me through the waterless wastes was not wasted.

     I began to pray again. I took it up again exactly where I had left off twenty years before, in doubt and hesitation, bewildered and unknow ing what to say. “Thy will be done,” I said, and seemed to feel my own bones tremble in the grave.

     Not a single one of my doubts and troubles about the Scripture had ever left me. They had, in fact, got worse. The more my affections and sympathies had got involved in Port William, the more uneasy I became with certain passages, not just in the letters of St. Paul, that clarifying and exasperating man, but even in the Gospels. When I would read, “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left," my heart would be with the ones who were left. And when I read of the division of the sheep from the goats, I couldn't consent to give up on the goats, though, like most people, I had my list of goats, who seemed hopeless enough to me, and I didn't know what to do about them.

     What would I do with a son who killed his father merely to inherit his money, and only a little quicker than he would have inherited it anyhow? What would I do with that woman-she lived up in the big bottom at the mouth of Willow Run long ago-who beat a black girl to death for stealing a spoon and then found the spoon? What would I do with some body who reduced the world in order to live in it, somebody who reduced life by living it? What would I do with a man who wished for the death of his rival? I didn't know. I could see that Hell existed and was daily among us. And yet I didn't want to give up even on the ones in Hell. For the best of reasons, as you might say.

     "You don't want to go to Hell, honey,” said Miss Gladdie Finn.

     “I don't,” I said. “But I don't reckon it has enough room for everybody who's eligible.”

     "Well, I don't know,” she said. “A soul is mighty small."

     But now I could see something else too—something, I suppose, that old Dr. Ardmire knew I did not see, and knew I would not easily see. My mistake was not in asking the questions that so plagued my mind back there at Pigeonville, for how could I have helped it? I can't help it yet; the questions are with me yet. My mistake was ignoring the verses that say God loves the world.

     But now (by a kind of generosity, it seemed) the world had so beaten me about the head, and so favored me with good and beautiful things, that I was able to see. "God loves Port William as it is," I thought. “Why else should He want it to be better than it is?"

     All my life I had heard preachers quoting John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” They would preach on the second part of the verse, to show the easiness of being saved ("Only believe"). Where I hung now was the first part. If God loved the world even before the event at Bethlehem, that meant He loved it as it was, with all its faults. That would be Hell itself, in part. He would be like a father with a wayward child, whom He can't help and can't forget. But it would be even worse than that, for He would also know the wayward child and the course of its waywardness and its suffering. That His love contains all the world does not show that the world does not matter, or that He and we do not suffer it unto death; it shows that the world is Hell only in part. But His love can contain it only by compassion and mercy, which, if not Hell entirely, would be at least a crucifixion.

     From my college courses and my reading I knew the various names that came at the end of a line of questions or were placed as periods to bafflement: the First Cause, the First Mover, the Life Force, the Universal Mind, the First Principle, the Unmoved Mover, even Providence. I too had used those names in arguing with others, and with myself, trying to explain the world to myself. And now I saw that those names explained nothing. They were of no more use than Evolution or Natural Selection or Nature or The Big Bang of these later days. All such names do is catch us within the length and breadth of our own thoughts and our own bewilderment. Though I knew the temptation of simple reason, to know nothing that can't be proved, still I supposed that those were not the right names.

     I imagined that the right name might be Father, and I imagined all that that name would imply: the love, the compassion, the taking offense, the disappointment, the anger, the bearing of wounds, the weeping of tears, the forgiveness, the suffering unto death. If love could force my own thoughts over the edge of the world and out of time, then could I not see how even divine omnipotence might by the force of its own love be swayed down into the world? Could I not see how it might, because it could know its creatures only by compassion, put on mortal flesh, become a man, and walk among us, assume our nature and our fate, suffer our faults and our death?

     Yes. And I could imagine a Father who is yet like a mother hen spreading her wings before the storm or in the dusk before the dark night for the little ones of Port William to come in under, some of whom do, and some do not. I could imagine Port William riding its humble wave through time under the sky, its little flames of wakefulness lighting are going out, its lives passing through birth, pleasure, suffering, and death I could imagine God looking down upon it, its lives living by His spirit. breathing by His breath, knowing by His light, but each life living also (inescapably) by its own will - His own body given to be broken.

     Once I had imagined those things, there was no longer with me any question of what is called “belief.” It was not a “conversion” in the usual sense, as though I had been altogether out and now was altogether in. It was more as though I had been in a house and a storm had blown off the roof; I was more in the light than I had thought. And also, at night, of course, more in the dark. I had changed, and the sign of it was only that my own death now seemed to me by far the least important thing in my life.

     What answer can human intelligence make to God's love for the world? What answer, for that matter, can it make to our own love for the world? If a person loved the world—really loved it and forgave its wrongs and so might have his own wrongs forgiven-what would be next?

     And so how was a human to pray? I didn't know, and yet I prayed. I prayed the terrible prayer: “Thy will be done.” Having so prayed, I prayed for strength. That seemed reasonable and right enough. As did praying for forgiveness and the grace to forgive. I prayed unreasonably, foolishly, hopelessly, that everybody in Port William might be blessed and happy the ones I loved and the ones I did not. I prayed my gratitude.

     The results, perhaps, were no more than expectable. I found, as I had always found, that I had strength, but never quite as much as I needed - or, anyhow, wanted. I felt that I might be partly forgiven, as I was partly forgiving; Port William continued to be partly blessed and happy, as before, and partly not; I was as grateful as I said I was. And so perhaps my prayers were partly answered; some perhaps were answered entirely.

     Perhaps all the good that ever has come here has come because people prayed it into the world. How would a person know? How could divine intervention happen, if it happens, without looking like a coincidence or luck? Does the world continue by chance (since it can hardly do so by justice) or by the forgiveness and mercy that some people have continued to pray for?

     But why ask? It was not just a matter of cause and effect. Prayers were not tools or money. Sometimes in my mind I would be sitting again in Dr. Ardmire's office, as if I had returned to 1935 out of my later life to give him my report. I finally knew, I told him, why Christ's prayer in the garden could not be granted. He had been seeded and birthed into human flesh. He was one of us. Once He had become mortal, He could not become immortal except by dying. That He prayed that prayer at all showed how human He was. That He knew it could not be granted showed His divinity; that He prayed it anyhow showed His mortality, His mortal love of life that His death made immortal. And I could see Dr. Ardmire looking straight at me with that distant, amused light in his eyes, and I could hear him say, "Well. And now what?"

     I had learned a good deal since 1935, I supposed. But did that mean that I could explain much of anything? It did not. Did it mean that my way in the world was now lighted to the very end? It did not.

     I prayed like a man walking in a forest at night, feeling his way with his hands, at each step fearing to fall into pure bottomlessness forever.

     Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart. It is like a bird that has blundered down the flue and is caught indoors and flutters at the windowpanes. It is like standing a long time on a cold day, knocking at a shut door.
But sometimes a prayer comes that you have not thought to pray, yet suddenly there it is and you pray it. Sometimes you just trustfully and easily pass into the other world of sleep. Sometimes the bird finds that what looks like an opening is an opening, and it flies away. Sometimes the shut door opens and you go through it into the same world you were in before, in which you belong as you did not before.

     If God loves the world, might that not be proved in my own love for it? I prayed to know in my heart His love for the world, and this was my most prideful, foolish, and dangerous prayer. It was my step into the abyss. As soon as I prayed it, I knew that I would die. I knew the old wrong and the death that lay in the world. Just as a good man would not coerce the love of his wife, God does not coerce the love of His human creatures, not for Himself or for the world or for one another. To allow that love to exist fully and freely, He must allow it not to exist at all. His love is suffering. It is our freedom and His sorrow. To love the world as much even as I could love it would be suffering also, for I would fail. And yet all the good I know is in this, that a man might so love this world that it would break his heart.


     Another section that I love!:
     Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave. And why not otherwise? Wouldn't it have put fine comical expressions on the faces of the scribes and the chief priests and the soldiers if at that moment He had come down in power and glory? Why didn't He do it? Why hasn't He done it at any one of a thousand good times between then and now?
     I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn't, He hasn't, because from the moment He did, He would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be His slaves. Even those who hated Him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in Him then. From that moment the possibility that we might be bound to Him and He to us and us to one another by love forever would be ended.
     And so, I thought, He must forebear to reveal His power and glory by presenting Himself as Himself, and must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of His creatures. Those who wish to see Him must see Him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world.
     I would sometimes be horrified in every moment I was alone. I could see no escape. We are too tightly tangled together to be able to separate ourselves from one another either by good or by evil. We all are involved in all and any good, and in all and any evil. For any sin, we all suffer. That is why our suffering is endless. It is why God grieves and Christ's wounds still are bleeding.
     But the mercy of the world is time. Time does not stop for love, but it does not stop for death and grief, either. After death and grief that it seems) ought to have stopped the world, the world goes on. More things happen. And some of the things that happen are good. My life was changing now. It had to change. I am not going to say that it changed for the better. There was good in it as it was. But also there was good in it as it was going to be. 


The Triumph of William McKinley by Karl Rove

I heard about this book when Dennis Prager interviewed Karl Rove about it on his radio show. Rove is not my favorite person, and I long ago swore off books written by conservative celebrities, but I do love history. Plus, my American History teacher in high school was William McKinley's direct descendant. So I felt a connection. The Triumph of William McKinley also came highly recommended by people I respect all over the front and back covers. How could I not love it?

Unfortunately, I didn't finish the book.

I'm sure it is fascinating to political insiders and those who love the horse race aspect of it. But it was too "inside baseball" for me. Too many names, too many nuanced policy positions, too many players to keep up with.

McKinley seems like a great guy. He seems to be a political genius. I just wish we got to know him more and less about the minutia of the process.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Toxic Charity

After having read When Helping Hurts, I noticed that a book called Toxic Charity by Robert D. Lupton, was also mentioned frequently alongside the other. So I put it on my list. Of the two, I think When Helping Hurts is the one I would read if I had to choose one, but they go hand in glove. In addition, I would recommend Poverty.Inc, a documentary to round out the course. 

While acknowledging a good heart behind charity efforts, the book starts off with a counterintuitive statement, “The compassion industry is almost universally accepted as a virtuous and constructive enterprise… Yet those closest to the ground — on the receiving end of this outpouring of generosity — quietly admit that it may be hurting more than helping?” (p. 2-3) The obvious reason for this is the dependency it creates. “When we do for those in need what they have the capacity to do for themselves, we disempower them.” (p. 3) Boom. There it is, right there. Mic drop.

So when does well-meaning relief become toxic? Luton gives the example of Hurricane Katrina which struck New Orleans. Six years later, relief was still being offered. He says, “When relief does not transition to development in a timely way, compassion becomes toxic.” (p. 7)

So in order to prevent Toxic Charity, he gives the compassionate crowd an oath he wants them take:
  • Never do tor the poor what they have (or could have ) the capacity to do for themselves.
  • Limit one-way giving to emergency situations.
  • Strive to empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements.
  • Subordinate self-interests to trends of those being served.
  • Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said — unspoken feelings may contain essential clues to effective service.
  • Above, all, do no harm. (p. 8)

He tells a story of a typical compassionate endeavor. A struggling seminary in Cuba was hosting U.S. volunteers. Twenty youth and adults arrived to lay tile in a new dormitory addition. They had no experience and the shoddy work had to be ripped out and done by local contractors after they left. The kitchen staff worked overtime to provide good, American-style food. Faculty members had to arrange the myriad logistical concerns such as housing and transportation. The president of the seminary knew the $30,000 spent by the volunteers on the trip was a total waste and cost her precious resources. But to turn them down would have endangered the much smaller cash donations the volunteering church made regularly to her ministry. This heartbreaking story is repeated countless times all over the world. 

The author found himself guilty of toxic charity right at home. He had worked for years with a group delivering holiday food and presents. But he discovered the lack of men in the house was often a symptom of shame as they hid from the volunteers. An emotional price tag cost those he most wanted to help. 

Then he discovered a quote from Jacques Ellul, a French philosopher in his book, Money and Power:

It is important that giving be truly free. It must never degenerate into charity, in the pejorative sense. Almsgiving is Mammon’s perversion of giving. It affirms the superiority of the giver, who thus gains a point on the recipient, binds him, demands gratitude, humiliates him and reduces him to a lower state than he had before. (p. 34)

Wow. Charitable giving can degenerate into a perversion. A counterfeit of true charitable love. This is a huge charge being made. But I believe Lupton backs it up. 

His solution is to return to a mindset based on Micah 6: 8, “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” We are to “act justly” and “love mercy.” Lupton elaborates, “Twinned together, these commands lead us to a holistic involvement. Divorced, they become deformed. Mercy without justice degenerates into dependency and entitlement, preserving the power of the giver over the recipient. Justice without mercy is cold and impersonal, more concerned about rights than relationships.” (p. 41) Therefore, we must make sure our charitable efforts do both. But how? He recommends doing your due diligence as any investor would. “And if you don’t have time to invest in foraging a trusting relationship, give your money to a ministry that does.” (p. 49)

Although he specifically works in domestic ministry, he discusses foreign aid as well. He describes the $1 trillion in charitable aid that has been given to Africa as “Dead Aid.” A Zambian economist, Dambisa Moyo, describes it like this, “Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world.” (p. 96)

Lupton discovered this was not the answer many charitable organizations were looking for. He told audiences, “When we respond to a chronic need as though it were a crisis, we can predict toxic results: dependency, deception, disempowerment….  Exasperated, I asked, ‘Why do we persist in giving away food when we know it fosters dependency?’ ‘Because it’s easier! the attractive lady blurted out.’” (p. 56) He goes on to sadly conclude, “A hunger-free zone may be possible, but developing the dependency-free zone is the real challenge.” (p. 101)

He lost friends and supporters when he began to ask people whom he partnered with to take the hard route. Unfortunately they wanted easy and they wanted something that would make them feel instantly good about themselves and the work they do. 

And there it is. 

All too often, charitable activity can mask a desire to feel like “a really good person.” Building two-way relationships and doing the hard work of balancing mercy with justice, while closely following the prompting of the Holy Spirit, is too messy and takes too much time. Better to give away free food and regale others with your stories of helping out the less fortunate. Ouch!

He urges churches to focus on a geographic area and work to build relationships with the people in that community. Have a vision of what the area can look like and develop attainable goals and a road map to get there over an extended period of time. Years, not “service project days”. Move from Relief, to Rehabilitation, to Development. He then offers some practical advice for getting started.

One family, who had moved to an urban neighbor for the specific purpose of helping the people asked him where to begin. He told them to do nothing for 6 months. Just watch. Try to see what the real needs are. Identify assets the community already has. Meet with leaders who are already in place. Then start with small achievable goals. Build relationships and live life daily with the people. Be part of the community and not an outsider swooping in to save them. Even then, it’s not enough. This is exactly what he did. He moved into a neighborhood, raised his family there, established relationships, only to hear his neighbor and close friend remark one day, “I hate church vans.” He knew the reference was to a van that had just gone by full of outside kids ready to embark on a service project. Even though this neighbor had, himself been a recipient, he hated that way he felt being on the receiving end. This shocked Lupton. He realized he needed to think long and hard about what our charitable acts are actually accomplishing. 

Don’t we all. 

Saturday, November 5, 2016

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

I read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair because it is a classic and I feel a certain obligation to read it. I didn’t think I would like it. All I knew is that it was of the “muckraker” genre from the early 20th Century and it lambasted the meat-packing industry. Ironically, I discovered that going after the meat-packing industry as a muckraker was not Sinclair’s intention. Apparently, he intended to highlight the plight of the poor and immigrants in this country, but that got lost in his revelations about the work the central character does. I think the reason he didn’t fulfill his goal, was that his story seems unrealistic, even at the time. The story is such a haunting story of helplessness and despair, I think we can be forgiven for believing it is just a story and not the lived experience of the poor.

That being said, Sinclair opens in media res with a joyous scene taking place just after the wedding of two Lithuanian immigrants in a town just outside of Chicago. He wants us to feel the excitement and hope as the young couple embarks on a new journey together. This high forms a peak from which the lows can be measured, The ostensible leader of this ragtag group, Marija, is a strong, single woman who single-handedly takes it upon herself to make sure the group is well-taken care of. She barks orders and bends the will of those around her to do all she can to create a successful and joyous affair. Small, quiet and humble Ona has just married the gregarious Jurgis. He now sees himself as the man of the family and will do all he can to relieve Marija of the responsibility for the group, allowing her to have the life and family she dreams of. He’s strong, a hard worker, and a man of unfailing integrity and optimism. But the first chapter ends with a note of dire warning. The gifts from the guests are not enough to cover the expenses of the wedding and Ona may lose her job for having to take a day off work to get married. 

Soon, Jurgis gets a job in a slaughterhouse. He is excited for the opportunity to work and support his extended immigrant family as well as his new wife. Jurgis believes that as long as he is willing to work hard and sacrifice, bringing in an income will not be a problem. Sinclair lets us know right away that this will not be a dream job, but Jurgis is, for now, blind to the realities he will face. With their combined incomes, the family decides to move from an overpriced rented hovel, to a home they can purchase. Once again, Sinclair is heavy on the foreshadowing and the reader can easily infer this will not end well. 

Slowly, the immigrants begin to understand the realities of their jobs. The workers are taken advantage of. Injuries are not compensated and the worker usually loses his job after being hurt. They begin to sense they are trapped with no free will of their own to make their own way. The realities of homeownership also hit them hard. They discover that no one told them about interest on the loan they took out to pay for the house. Ona must return to work and the oldest child, Stanislovas must work as well. While Sinclair lets the struggling family have a moment of hope, the reader is not afforded that opportunity. We know this ends badly. 

If the conniving business owners and shady realtors aren’t enough, the weather conspires against our heroes. Jurgis’ father, Antony, dies a broken man, unable to find work, and unable to survive the cold. The run down home provides little shelter from the elements, and Jurgis begins to spend his hard earned money on alcohol to keep warm. 

Seeing how they are mistreated, for example only full hours worked are paid for, not partial hours, Jurgis and his family decide to form a union. He becomes an evangelical missionary for the cause, making a name for himself. Slowly the family comes to discover hardship after hardship in Packingtown. Disease is rampant. The food manufactures are only too happy to sell dangerous products to unsuspecting people. The politicians and the political bosses are thoroughly corrupt. There is nowhere to turn. No one can help. 

Eventually, Ona has a baby, but both she and the child are sickly. Marija loses her “good” job painting cans and is forced to take a job working in the meat industry. Again, more disgusting details are supplied of the way our food is produced. Jurgis falls at work and injures himself, costing his job as well. Another winter hits to further devastate the family. Jurgis falls into despair. He finally finds work in the worst possible place, the fertilizer factory. The stench seeps into his very being and forces him to become an outcast. The last one available to work, Elzbieta, goes to work in a sausage factory. Again, we don’t want to know how sausage is made. 

Jurgis continues to drink. Ona is pregnant again, and full of despair. We learn she has been sexually assaulted at work. Once Jurgis finds out and tries to kill the man, he is arrested and blacklisted. For a month, he agonizes in jail over the fate of his struggling family, who suffer terribly without him. He returns to find them homeless, relying on the kindness of neighbors. Ona goes into premature labor. Jurgis begs a midwife to help. The $25 fee is devastating, but he promises to pay. She and the child both die, and he turns even more to drink. 

Eventually Jurgis runs to Chicago to escape. A social worker lands him a job, but he learns that his first son, Antara, drowns in his absence. The children of Elzbieta are working in the streets and rarely return home. Feeling completely disconnected from what is left of the people he immigrated with, Jurgis takes off, living as a tramp, hitching rides on trains and doing odd jobs. He actually feels a bit of freedom and sees a different side of the country, but once again, winter looms. He returns to the city, finds work, but a broken arm has him out of the workforce again. He is desperate, out on the streets, begging. 

A criminal syndicate happens upon Jurgis and puts him to work. He enters the corrupt world of politics trying to gain spoils from the system. He had started off in America as a Republican, now he works for Democrats but both are equally corrupt. Eventually this lands him another job in a packinghouse. But when a strike breaks out, he continues to work as a “scab.” His union-supporting days are long gone. He sees the man who harassed his wife and beats him again. After getting out of jail, he looks up Marija. He finds her working in a whore house. Both are arrested when the police choose that particular time to do a raid. 

After being released, Jurgis finally finds his true calling. He stumbles into a meeting on Socialism. His eyes are opened. Finally the truth is revealed to him. A Socialist hotel owner offers him a job. Jurgis becomes an fired-up evangelist for Socialism. The story ends with big political gains for the Socialists in Chicago. 

I think because the book ends on such a propagandist note, whatever Sinclair’s argument was fails. He is clearly trying to persuade the reader of the need for Socialism and the horrific plight of the poor. Yet the actual effect of the book was to convince readers to reform the meat-packing industry. Why the disconnect? I believe it was because although his story portends to be a typical story of the working poor, people cannot relate. It simply does not comport with our lived reality. Of the 7 or 8 people who immigrated, two are dead, the children are running loose on the streets, one works as a prostitute, and one has a disgusting job. Only the enlightened, Socialist Jurgis is a “success.” This heavy-handed morality tale simply doesn't ring true. 

Sinclair paints all business owners and politicians with a very broad brush. All are corrupt. All are completely devoid of any morals. Only the Socialist care at all about their fellow man. He completely disregards reality. I kept wondering, “Why would a business sell food that kills its customers? Isn’t that bad for the bottom line?” “Why would a business owner so mistreat his employees? How long can he continue to find workers if he maims and kills them?” None of the actions taken by the evil corporations and politicians ring true. 

While Sinclair certainly creates a family that earns our sympathy, we really can’t relate. Their tale is ultimately foreign to the experiences of millions of immigrants. America is not the kind of country Sinclair believes it to be. Immigrants have struggled here, but most tend to do very well over time. Most do not end up dead or involved in criminal activity.  Further, his prescriptions are not what is best for America.