Today's Utopia

I was sitting in my cell, listening to some oldies, drinking some coffee and writing a letter to an uncle that I just now finished. I planned on writing a post afterwards, but I think a section of this letter will do. It tells some of the topics that have engaged my mind recently. It starts off with me speaking on the John Steinbeck classic, "The Grapes of Wrath"...

I did reflect on my relatives who migrated to California during the depression and even if they didn't suffer as much as the Joads did, which they very well may have, if Steinbeck's portrayal is anywhere close to accurate, it sounds like painful journey for any family packing west in those days. In my opinion, the most powerful quote in the book is near the end when Tom Joad's mother is saying goodbye to him after his young sister let it slip about the murder and his hiding in the woods. His mom cries for she knows the chances she'll see him again are slim to non and he says confident and reassuringly, "Whenever you see a cop beating a guy, I'll be there. Whenever you hear a hungry new born baby cry, I'll be there. Whenever people are struggling to be free, look for me, Ma, I'll be there."

Tom might not have had it all figured out but his ideology says, people die but ideas live on and those words echo through history.

I have educated myself a bit more on politics recently and though I understand the central ideology reflected in 1984 and Animal Farm, I plan on re-reading them both after I've read more on socialism, totalitarianism and utopia prophecy. Tell me more about your political points of view. I had to cancel my subscription to the New York Times, partly because the only thing I received from them while being subscribed for a month was ONE book review, which I enjoyed, but I wonder how their business is doing and why they forgot the rest of the paper... four weeks in a row! The New Yorker is plenty along with my USA Today and yes, the cartoons are great.

I am impressed with the blog you included. Despite my lack of comparative understanding with the Biblical story of Elijah, I understand the portrayed concept which you made pretty clear. We do live in a greedy, unruly, "sinful" world, that in my opinion resembles a verging Orwellian utopia written about by say, the Founding Fathers.

The headlines these days are constantly disastrous and depressing and even though I haven't been a consistent newspaper reader for very long, I can see that if the patterns had been this bad for any past number of years, the world would have burned up a long time ago. The odds are surely against us in this plentiful, industrious twenty-first century where we gamble with mother nature for a green bill that is constantly declining in value. Maybe some day, we will look back, releived, at what a mess things were at the start of the century. Then again, maybe someday the price of clean water will dwarf the price of oil and fresh produce and poultry will surpass the value of gold. I hope not that the latter will resemble the future world for my unborn children and their children alike. But like you said, it's in God's hands. I don't know who God is exactly but I'm sure He knows better than any human being what our doom is and will be of our own making. How can we pray for assistance if any elementary educated person can see the cause of our troubles is us?