Samuel and Norbert

Samuel and Norbert: Providence and Wonder

Samuel had managed to wrangle two gauze socks on the ends of his despondent appendages. With much eye rubbing and many cavernous yawns, he succeeded in capping his foot with a single worn boot. But the morning weighed heavily on his eye lids. He found himself staring helplessly at the leather object. Exhaustion dilated his pupil pushing the boot farther from his apprehension. His mind was so stagnant that the task seemed herculean. He was loosing a battle of attrition with his second boot.

A boot that had been on the feet of a whole family and after they were worn beyond utility given to the village orphan. The boot had become more patches than boot. Maybe the boot itself was secretly apprehensive. That one more foot of one more dirty dirty boy was too much for the leather soul to take.¹

At last with a great turning of the tide, Samuel tugged the tongue and inserted his fleshy depressor. His toes were thwarted by a crunchy mass. With a harsh gasp, Samuel reflexively withdrew his foot from the boots yawning laced maw. The violent movement of his leg unseated him and he slid from his cot striking the unyielding floor with his ribs. His nose was the first to detect the pungent nature of the recalcitrant boot. Samuel opened his eyes and found that at the base the neck of the boot was comprehensive collection nondescript items gathered about the room: a handfull of leaves, a feather, the patch he had prepared for the failing knee of his pants, a failed writing exercise scavenged from the waste basket, and a bit of cotton from a wounded pillow. Samuel eyed the most suspect corners for the furry master craftsmen. Grudgingly, Samuel conceded, “Wow. A throne fit for a furry little king.” After tugging a sturdy little mouse nest from the boots toe and force his foot inside he won a decisive victory over the morning.

But the fur laden craftsmen was not so easily conquered. After Samuel had given his dedicated effort to unseat the enterprising mouse, he conceded defeat. Finishing his dressing went quickly and he was about his chores.

A crack in the door revealed, the minister seated like an sage king surrounded by a rampart of books. His dress was a mime-like confusion of blacks and whites. Frankensteinean hair exploded up from his scalp like a speckled gray mushroom. The skin on his chin hung in a loose pouch girdled in his collar. Loose skin trembled causing seismic quivers to wave across his wrinkled visage as he toiled over a piece of paper.

The sound of Samuel shutting the door behind him drew the eyes of the minister. He darted his squib into the ink well. As a smile pulled all the loose skin taunt against his face, he reminded Samuel of a baby smiling during a game of hide-and-seek. That moment of glee when the playful child takes his hands away and finds that the wondrous world outside himself remains. For the briefest moment the diabolic enchantment of decay was defeated by the child-like transformation conquering his face. But only for a moment, for the minster labored to rise from his seat and after three or four arduous contortions he stood. “Mornin' Samuel, m' boy,” rasped the minister.

“Morning, Paster Eli.” groaned Samuel, as happily as could be expected of him at this hour. The old man reached him with a pronounced duck footed waddle. Eli's open arms pulled the boy into himself. Samuel found himself enveloped in the center of the aged man. Even the gentle tremor's of the embrace had become Samuel's home. With a tender pat on the cheek, he released Samuel.

Eli took one preoccupied step back. “Busy day. Busy day,” aspirated the patriarch. “I need you to run about for me today. These legs will not get me far fast. Yours will. Don't get old Samuel, my boy. Don't get old.”

The minister tottered back to his desk. He licked his finger and started paging through a stack on his left. “I have . . . it here . . . somewhere,” he said absently, while still trying to lick his finger every page. “Ah hear it is. Take this letter to the, uh, posht oaffith,” he lisped as he attempted to talk and lick the envelope. Samuel giggled at his antics. While the old pastor beamed finding the laughter of children to be as enthralling as a siren's call without all the dangers. So many years of loneliness and books made the mirth of children like the melody of angels.

Eli shoveled the arms of his knight errant full of quests. “Widow Smith, a bit of money . . . Bill at the corner store a list of requests for Easter . . . A thank you to Mrs. Green . . . A donation for Mr. Brown who has broken an arm with four little mouths to feed,” Eli anxiously stacked Samuel to his chin with errands. Samuel sleepily blinked as each request fell on his day like a bandit leaving him without a moment. And no time to hunt up that mouse, Samuel considered pensively.

Eli stuffed a piece of chilled toast into Samuel's yawning mouth. No doubt the toast had been forgotten hours earlier in a fit of the most absent minded scholarship. “Remember that man does not live by bread alone. You need a verse to chew on,” intoned the elder. Samuel mumbled back something through his bread that was unintelligible. The minister licked and turned until his eyes brightened. “Ah, Luke nine two through four. This seems fitting passage,” nodded the pastor. He began after a pause with all the pomp of a Shakespearean performance, “'And He (that's Jesus) sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing.'” Eli further wrinkled his brow. “I suppose I am not sending you to proclaim, but live the kingdom of God. Hmmm . . . miraculous healing seems . . . unlikely. . . ,” he embellished uncertainly through pursed lips. “'And He (that's that Jesus guy again) said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, not a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece,” the frown continued to deepen the fissures on his face. Eli looked at the tottering stack of responsibilities in Samuel's arms. He sighed, “Hmm . . well, I guess I am sending you out with quite a lot. The passage does not quite fit, oh well. The sent part was go though,” Eli shrugged in playful defeat. Samuel gave a carnivorous smile, clamping the toasts in his teeth.

“Do not run so fast in your youth that you do not listen for God's voice,” Eli chattered, making a long good bye longer with the same fervency as a mother releasing her child to his first day of school.

Samuel coughed a goodbye through his toast.

The collection of buildings people around called “The Town” was the definition of finitude being set like an impossibly small jewel in the center of spreading plains that eluded Samuel's imagination.

1[At the height of Samuel's struggle shear desperation caused his mind to consider the metaphysical implications of a boot. His mind bounced back and forth between the boot and his feet considering them as strange and alien. Why do I have feet at all? And what is a boot that I should have to put it on?]

The Problem: How I got there!

I can think of a thousand different ways to elucidate this cardinal problem. I will demonstrate through three reflections that captured me: Nietzsche, literary movements, and providence. All of these reflections became a litmus test that demonstrated the sickness of my own worldview.

Nietzsche

At first glance, I was not all that impressed by the German philosopher Nietzsche. His language was amazing. A German friend told me that Nietzsche is second only to Goethe in his effect on the German language. His philosophy, however, was judgmental, (He calls Kant an idiot, because he does not work out is ethics based on the idea evolution like Nietzsche. Kant can be called a lot of things, but an idiot is not amongst them.), and his conclusions did not seem to follow from his data.

In Nietzche's famous piece Thus Spoke the Zarathustra, his hermit protagonist accuses modern man of killing God. Nietzsche eluded me. When I anticipated an argument against the existence of God, I instead heard the voice of William James. The argument was not that modern man succeeded in disproving the existence of God, but rather that he lived as if he did. It was a practical argument. After the Enlightenment, or ideological movement of Rationalism, man act as though there was no God. Man willed the death of God.

I am in Nietzche's serves, for this lead be to reflect that I often made decisions in my own life, as if there is no God. Was I murdering God within my will and mind, when I made decisions as if He was not there? Absolutely!

Conviction: I, and many in the Christian community, have expunged the consciousness God and His presence (or believed that His existence has no practical import).

Literary Movements

I am currently teaching High School literature and as such I find myself spending a lot of time explaining the ideologies behind a literary movement. Last year I taught a sympathy to the Naturalist movement, but now I feel sorrow. Naturalism means that Romanticism lost its battle with the Enlightenment in a fight to decide wither the cosmos has meaning or not. Let me explain. . . .

Enlightenment is the child of the Rationalist movement, as I alluded to above. Rationalism believe that there are really only two sources of certain truth: A mathematical philosophy and the scientific method. The Romantics took this for what it practically meant: the end of love, truth, beauty, emotion, the soul, and subsequently humanity. But since the Enlightenment claimed reason as its virtue, Romanticism fought instead with beauty, emotion, and nostalgia. Enlightenment used nature and paganism as there most common object. The Transcendentalists argued that nature transcended scientific facts. Naturalism was the literary answer to Transcendentalism. Naturalism concluded that Nature was cruel and absurd. Naturalism is the opposite of providence (and natural selection). In naturalism and strongest and most virtuous die first, under the frigid sky of an uncaring cosmos.

My general acceptance of the argument of Naturalism means that I was accepting a worldview that was in substance anti-Christian. A world where providence is dead.

To be continued . . .