Sunday, July 6, 2025
D+240/168/1293
1942 Anne Frank's family went into hiding in After House, Amsterdam
1947 Spain voted for Francisco Franco as Head of State for life until death
In bed at 9, awake at 2:30, up at 2:55, unable to sleep, worrying about water softener salt and broader concerns, dependency, burden. Rainy day today, high of 73°
Meds., etc. Morning meds at 10. BP = 140/81 Foot edema is much better.
You'll be back
Like before
I'll fight the fight and win the war
For your love
For your grace
And I'll love you til my dying days
When you're gone, I'll go mad
So don't throw away this thing we had
Cause when push comes to shove
I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love
Da da da da da da da di ya da Da da da da di ya da
C. S. Lewis wrote a number of essays defending Christianity that were collected in a 1970 volume titled "God in the Dock," the British term for God on trial. I read it half a century ago, during my Lewis phase of struggling with theism and Christianity, but I can't be sure. I do remember, however, eventually coming to the conclusion that the way to relieve God of the responsibility for all the evil and suffering in His creation was to stop believing in Him, or at least in Him as an All-Loving Father Creator If He doesn't exist, or if He didn't create the world, we can't blame Him for all the terrible evil and suffering in it. Not guilty, end of conundrum. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
The Poor Man by A. E. Coppard (1923). Yesterday and today, for the first time in years I read an entire work of literature that wasn't a poem, Copard's The Poor Man. It is barely 12 pages long, which was one of the reasons I picked it from a collection of short stories I bought many years ago. Coppard was a respected British author of short stories. He lived from 1878 until 1957, time enough to see Britain topple from the world's largest empire under Queen Victoria to a pretend empire under Queen Elizatbeth II. He was born and raised a poor man, but made hiself into quite a respected author of serious English literature. The Poor Man is a tale of a poor newspaper deliveryman in rural England (Dan Pavey), his clergyman (the Rev. Faudel Scroope), his son (Martin Pavey), and the gamekeeper on an estate of a local landowner, It's a tragedy. Dan is a simple, good, earthy, unmarried man who lives with his shopkeeper mother, delivers newspapers by bicycle to local hamlets, lives it up at the local pub on Saturday nights, and is a star of his church choir on Sunday morning's. One day Dan shows up at home with a 5 year old Martin, confessing that Martin is his illegitimate son, upon learning of which the Rev. Scroope ousts him from a choir, a big loss for Dan, who nonethless lives pleasantly thereafter with his mother, his son, and his faithful dog, all of whom he dearly loves. Dan has two strikes against him in his rural Victorian community (in additiionto his poverty): First, he was caught and convicted of serving as a runner for a local horse-racing bookmaker, and secondly and much worse, he was caught poaching rabbits on the landlord's estate, got into a fight with the landowner's gamekeeper, and was convicted of assault. While Dan was serving his sentence, his son Martin drowned while on a boating outing in a local park. When Dan learned of this loss, he was struck dumb, unable to speak other than to perseverate In a park there was a lake, / On the lake there was a boat, / In the boat there was a boy . . .
As is so often the case, I am not sure what the point of the story is. Dan had been warned by the dour Rev. Scroppe that gambling, poaching, and fathering a child out of wedlock were serious offenses, indeed "a mockeery of God," and that earthly punishment could be expected. Is that the moral of the story; Dan sinned and he paid a terrible price?
Or is the moral that the lower classes are punished for trying to rise above their alloted places in society. Early in the story, Dan argues with his mother about his drinking and says
"Name of God, do you think I booze just for the sake o' the booze, because I like booze? No man does that. . . Not that one would mind to be poor if it warn't preached to him that he must be contented. How can the poor be contented a long as there's the rich to serve? The rich we have always with us, that's our responsibility, we are the grass under their feet. Why should we be proud of that? When a man's poor the only thing left him is hope -- for something better; and that's called envy. If you don't like your riches you can always give it up, but poverty you can't desert, nor it won't desert you."
At the conclusion of the story, Dan is returning to prison, having been temporarily released to attend his son's funeral. The final lines of the story are
He sees the summer is coming on, he is going back to prison. "Courage is vain," he thinks, "we are like the grass underfoot, a blade that excels is quickly shorn. In this part of the world the poor have no call to be proud, they had only need be penitent."
In the park there was a lake,
On the lake . . . . . . . . . . . boat,
In the boat . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Is the story one of class oppression? And religious teaching social and political quietism¹? I think of the original third verse of the Anglican hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful written by Cecil Frances Alexander:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly
And ordered their estate.
The verse is now omitted from printed versions of the hymn, probably because of its suggestion of Divine determinism and specifically the divine origin of social classes and economic inequality. Isn't this what Dan Pavey drinks to forget, that it is "preached to him that he must be contented" while he can't be contented "as long as there's the rich to serve."
The story is a good character study. Dan Pavey is a likeable man. He is basically an honorable man. He works hard to support himself and contribute to the support of his mother and his son. He likes his ale and conviviality, but apparently only on Saturday nights, and he never misses church services on Sunday morning when he lends his superior vocal talents to the choir. We are told the circumstances that caused him not to have custody of his son until the son was 5 years old, but he never tried to hide his paternity and had a loving and supportive relationship with the boy. His crimes were extremely petty, i.e., running numbers so to speak for a bookie and poaching rabbits, probably for the family dinner table. He did defame Rev. Scroope, but apparently only once, and that was a sin of anger after being booted from the choir. His assault on the game warden was also a crime of passion brought on by the game warden's killing of Pavey's beloved dog. For these relatively minor crimes, he was imprisoned for six months and suffered the death of his son. If, as Rev. Scroope suggested early in the narrative, this was divine retribution for his sins, the imbalance between the crimes/sins and the punishment would seem to support the "mean prick theory" of God that I wrote about above. Was that Coppard's point in writing the story? Or was he just saying that Life/Fate/the World has it in for poor folk?
¹ Romans 13: 1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.
4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.
7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
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