Dead Tractors and Living Beings!

Greetings All,

The last two days have really slipped by at light speed and I find myself falling behind on devotional posts. I keep notes in my journal of things that strike me that I can write about and a while ago I had noted a page from The Grapes of Wrath, I know you are shocked, but that is one of the books I am reading now and it strikes me often.  Here is the quote, it is long, but read through it is worth it:

"The houses were left vacant on the land, and the land was vacant because of this.  Only the tractor sheds of corrugated iron, silver and gleaming, were alive; and they were alive with metal and gasoline and oil, the disks of the plows shining.  The tractors had lights shining, for there is no day and night for a tractor and the disks turn the earth in the darkness and they glitter in the daylight.  And when a horse stops work and goes into the barn there is a life and a vitality left, there is a breathing and a warmth, and the feet shift on the straw, and the jaws champ on the hay, and the ears and the eyes are alive.  There is a warmth of life in the barn, and the heat and smell of life.  But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the ore it came from.  The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse.  Then the corrugated iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is dead.  And this is easy and efficient.  So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of the land and the working of it, and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation."  from The Grapes of Wrath pg. 157

This passage is representative of something Steinbeck does through out the book and that is painting a pictorial, social commentary on what he sees happening in the world around him.  This passage comes just as the Joads are pulling out to begin their journey to California and it has nothing specifically to do with them, but it is a part of the whole story as the Joads are just the focus of the story, while the larger story was happening to families all across the nation and Steinbeck never wants us to forget that.

What I love about this passage is the way it bores into the soul of the issue.  In just a few words Steinbeck captures one of the downsides to technological advances.  The tractors are dead.  There is no life, or warmth, or ache at the end of a hard worked day.  There is no real connection with the land, the animals needed to work it and the people that need each other to accomplish all that needs to be done.  The dead tractor can do the work of the horses and all of the men, women and children that formerly kept the farm alive.  No longer is the farm a way of life, lived and died in the same spot; suddenly it has become merely a job.

The question this should raise for each of us is, "Where have we died a little as we transition to technology?"  While we may have hundreds of Facebook posts a day, when was the last time we had a face to face conversation, looking into the eyes of another person to see the hurt, the joy, the desperation and hope?  When we turn the computer off it is just as dead as Steinbeck's tractors. 

My great-grandfather, with the help of a group of neighbors, built his house by hand.  They banged every nail, painted every board, ran every peace of wire and pipe, because of that he, my great-grandmother, my grandfather and grandmother and now my aunt and uncle can never conceive of selling the place and moving somewhere else.  They were connected to the house, the land, the life in a way that our transient society today has lost complete touch with.  Our houses are simply places to live, rather than a living, breathing home that is connected to the family.  If we are not careful, our very houses can become just as dead as Steinbeck's tractors.

Jesus understood how the loss of connection leads to death.  When we look at lepers or the woman with the issue of blood, we look at people who have not known the touch of another human being for a very long time.  They have been separated, cut off, out cast; for all practical purposes they are dead.  They eat and breath but they just exist and do not "live!"  When he encounters people like this, Jesus immediately reaches out and touches them or makes a point to re-connect them to their community, moving them from a dead existence back to a life with connection and touch.

As we consider this new year, let's look at our own lives and those around us.  Who are the people, what are the places and situations that need a fresh human touch inspired by the love of God?  Where can we set down technology to re-connect in a flesh and blood, face to face kind of way to really start living again instead of putting the dead tractor in the dead barn and hibernating in our solitary existence hidden behind cell phones, computers and privacy fences?

Let's really live today!

Your brother in Christ,
Faron