1. The Challenge
Recently, Irene, a mentor of mine left me the following message on Facebook:
Steve, I remembered this while reading on other topics. I'm really curious to get your thoughts on this. The speech made a deep impression on me at the time it was delivered and I've referred to it now and again over the years. Nibley's ideas were always intriguing -- we were at BYU when he was professor and we were fortunate to take a course from him. The speech is titled "Work We Must, But the Lunch is Free." It's published in a collection of his writings now.
I know enough writers to know that all writers, no matter how large or small their audience, crave personal connection with their readers. Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Valentine for Ernest" is a perfect example of one writer fulfilling that need for connection:
Though, my audience is small, I’m no exception. I have no clue why Irene requested my thoughts on Nibley's talk. Maybe I wrote something that made her think I might have some insight. As Irene is someone I consider a mentor, and far more educated in both temporal and spiritual matters than I am, it is more likely that she is leading me to water, hoping I’ll drink. Either way, I’m flattered. Yes, I have a willing audience! So, I’ll engage. I’m going to respond pretty much the same Nye did, with humility and from the gut.
First, however, I want to deal openly with some doubts I have as to formulating a fitting response. Although I’m a Mormon with a strong, personal testimony of the gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, that testimony is new, and the fact is I have been an inactive member and nonbeliever for much of my life, which means my knowledge of doctrine hasn't developed much beyond that of a sixteen-year-old, when I stopped going to church many, many years ago.
Second, I feel that any value I might have with regards to my religion, is as an outsider. Intellectually, my culture is not the Mormon culture. I developed as a thinker in El Paso. Most of my mentors are do-good Buddhist writers and do-good lawyers working for the rights of migrant farm workers. I once considered myself an atheist and what moved me most on a spiritual level was nature writing and science written for the masses, such as Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot, not scriptures. I have no mind for the particulars of science, and if it had been my field of study, I would have failed miserably. But I always have been drawn to the magnificence of creation and have liked science’s non-biased approach: observe first—then think. Rather than—force your observations to meet the conditions of what you believe, which is what most of the population does. That was also my attraction to Buddhism—yes, there is more to life than meets the eye, but what you see now at this moment, the observable world, is the only way into that sacred space. In short, I’m a Mormon not because I was raised one (though that is true), but simply because I believe. I think more like someone who is not Mormon. Enquiry, I’m old friends with. Belief is a new, intimate, somewhat fragile love. In Christ, I am truly a newlywed, learning day by day what this new relationship I have with God really means. Therefore, I’m not really qualified to analyze church doctrine. I simply haven't put in the hours of field work necessary to qualify my observations as anything other than Lazy-Boy Recliner philosophy.
However, that never stops a writer. Writing isn't so much about sharing what you know as it is about discovering what you might think along the way. It is about tapping into an energy and following it to a place of possible inquiry. It’s about recording the journey of the mind, not about sharing some earth-shattering insight. So, I’m up for the challenge. Following a train of thought, no matter how feeble, how flawed, is something I’m good at.
2.
The Two
Employers
Hugh H. Nibley begins his argument by retracing the history of modern science from a sure, very doctrinal Darwinian/atheist approach to a more open, less-sure, post-modern approach. As Nibley is a master of language, as well as the people he quotes, I feel it would be a crime to paraphrase him or his sources, and so instead, I've decided to include key passages and build bridges over any chasms left by what I've cut out.
The famous geologist Sir Julian Huxley used to go from school to school in the manner of a traveling revivalist, preaching his gospel of evolution: "In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created; it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it including our human selves, mind and soul, as well as brain and body. So did religion." He was fond of reminding his audiences that there is no Santa Claus, and that mature people should give up wishful thinking about such things as gifts and blessings, spiritual or material, bestowed from on high.
The high school youth of my day took great satisfaction in reciting the words of Omar Khayyam: "And that inverted bowl we call the sky, whereunder crawling coop't we live and die, lift not the hands to It for help, for It rolls impotently on as Thou or I." This is, as one eminent commentator on the scientific scene, Hoimar von Ditfurth, puts it, "that 'modern view,' still current today, that the earth with everything in it is dangling in the isolation of a universe whose cold majesty disdains it . . . Deep down we are probably even proud of the detachment with which we accept our 'true' situation. . . . Much of the cynicism and nihilism characteristic of the modern psyche can be traced to this chilling conception."
But within the last decade or so, leaders in scientific research have begun to express the opposite opinion to this, saying that they more than suspect the possibility (1) that the somebody out there cares–i.e., there is direction and purpose to what is going on; and (2) that gifts sent down from above are more than a childish tradition.
He then goes on to include some of the challenges to the strictly Darwinian view, of which I’ll share a couple:
A grand old–timer in biology, the 1937 Nobel Prize winner, Albert Szent–Györgyi, recently wrote:
According to present ideas, this change in the nucleic acid [which determines the nature of protein molecules formed in a cell] is accomplished through random variation. . . . If I were trying to pass a biology examination, I would vigorously support this theory. Yet in my mind I have never been able to accept fully the idea that the adaption and the harmonious building of those complex biological systems, involving simultaneous changes in thousands of genes, are the results of molecular accidents. . . . The probability that all of these genes should have changed together through random variation is practically zero. . . . I have always been seeking some higher organizing principle that is leading the living system toward improvement and adaptation. I know this is biological heresy, . . . e.g., I do not think that the extremely complex speech center of the human brain ... was created by random mutations that happened to improve the chances of survival of individuals. . . . I cannot accept the notion that this capacity arose through random alterations, relying on the survival of the fittest. I believe that some principle must have guided the development toward the kind of speech center that was needed.
More surprising is the story now unfolding as various fields of research combine to give us a picture of gifts being showered upon us from on high–the literal reading of the Santa Claus or Kachina myth. Thus Buckminster Fuller says: "Energies emanating from celestial regions remote from Planet Earth are indeed converging and accumulating in Planet Earth's biosphere ... both as radiation and as matter. "We aboard Earth are receiving gratis just the amount of prime energy wealth, to regenerate biological life on board.... Van Allen belts, . . . the ionosphere, stratosphere and atmosphere all refractively differentiate the radiation frequencies, . . . . separating [them] into a variety of indirect life–sustaining energy transactions." "Vegetation is the prive energy impounder"; from stellar radiation "the biologicals are continually multiplying, their beautiful cellular, molecular, and atomic structurings" which complete the equation.... "Certainly the earth is not the center of the universe," writes von Ditfurth, ". . . but this crowded earth is a focal point in the universe; one of perhaps innumerable places in the cosmos where life and consciousness could flourish. . . . What a concentration of mighty forces upon one more or less tiny point!" Is it possible that someone does have us in mind?
After opening up the possibility that Darwinism/Atheism is not the only world view that can be supported by science, Nibley switches hats from philosopher/observer to Mormon theologian and builds a case that it is not so much scientific Darwinism, but social Darwinism that is the real threat to Christianity:
As if to counteract these growing heresies, the old Darwinian view is being puffed today for all it is worth in a half dozen prestigious TV documentaries in which we are treated to endless footage of creatures ranging from amoebas, to giant carnivores, stalking, seizing and with concentrated deliberation soberly crunching, munching, swallowing, and ingesting other insects, fishes, birds, and mammals, etc. This, we are told again and again, is the real process by which all things were created. Everything is lunching on everything else, all the time, and that, children, is what makes us what we are; that is the key to progress. And note it well, all these creatures when they are not lunching are hunting for lunch–they all have to work for it: There is no free lunch in the world of nature, the real world. Lunch is the meaning of life, and everything lunches on something else–"Nature red in tooth and claw." Tennyson's happy phrase suited the Victorian mind to perfection. He got the idea from Darwin, as Spencer did his even happier phrase, "survival of the fittest." Darwin gave the blessing of science to men who had been hoping and praying for holy sanction to an otherwise immoral way of life. Malthus had shown that there will never be enough lunch for everybody, and therefore people would have to fight for it; and Ricardo had shown by his Iron Law of Wages that those left behind and gobbled up in the struggle for lunch had no just cause for complaint. Darwin showed that this was an inexorable law of nature by which the race was actually improved; Miall and Spencer made it the cornerstone of the gospel of Free Enterprise–the weaker must fall by the way if the stock is to be improved. This was movingly expressed in J. D. Rockefeller's discourse on the American Beauty Rose, which, he said, "can be produced ... only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. . . . This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working–out of a law of nature and a law of God."
In this divinely appointed game of grabs, to share the lunch–prize would be futile, counter–productive, nay immoral. Since there is not enough to go around, whoever gets his fill must be taking it from others–that is the way the game is played. "In Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, or anywhere else in England," as Brigham Young reported the scene in 1856, workers knew that "their employers would make them do their work for nothing, and then compel them to live on roots and grass if their physical organization could endure it, therefore, says the mechanic, 'If I can get anything out of you I will call it a godsend," and does what he can to rip off the boss. If he gets caught, he is punished, yet he is only playing the same game as his employer.??
Here, Nibley sees two world views as battling for the souls of men. The first, inspired by Satan, says lunch is limited and must be fought over. There are only so many resources and some will eat and others will be eaten in this dynamic fight for survival. In this view, survival of the fittest being natural, competition is the moral choice and capitalism is the purist system:
The first employer offers us lunch, and since lunch is something everybody must have, he is in a powerful position to bargain. He explains that this glorious earth is his private estate, that it all belongs to him to the ends thereof; in particular he owns the mineral rights and the media of exchange, by controlling which he enjoys the willing cooperation of the military, ecclesiastical, and political establishments, and rules with magnificent uproar. He keeps everything under tight control, though, for all the blood and horror–nobody makes any trouble in his world from the rivers to the ends thereof. Well can he ask Adam, "What is it you want?" for he claims to be the God of this World, and the Lord himself grants him the title of Prince of this World. All who are not working for him on his estate he charges with trespassing, including even heavenly messengers, whom he accuses of spying out his vast property with an eye to taking over the whole of it. But he is willing to make a deal if they have money. To have merely sufficient for your needs, however, is not what he has in mind–that would be the equivalent of the free lunch, lamely ignoring the endless possibilities for acquiring power and gain that the place offers; this developer has a vision of unlimited sweep and power?"You can have anything in this world for money!" Beginning, of course, with lunch. Because money is the only thing that will get you lunch–and since everybody must have lunch, that is the secret of his control.
The second view, inspired by God, taught through Christ, says the garden is bountiful and lunch is provided:
So let us go across the road for an interview with the Other Employer. To our surprise, he answers our first question with an emphatic: "Forget about lunch! Don't even give it a thought!" "Take no thought of what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewith ye shall be clothed!" "But what will become of me then?" you ask. Not to worry, "We will preach the gospel to you, and then you will find out that lunch should be the least of your concerns."
3. A
Flash of Inspiration
After establishing the two employers—mammon, who says lunch is limited and we must fight for it, and Christ, who says the garden is full, come and partake of it—Nibley goes on to argue that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have a unique promise from God that binds Him to take care of our temporal needs if we, in exchange, do his spiritual work on earth. Therefore, counter to logic, members of the church should pursue spiritual goals and leave temporal matters in the hands of God. This view, of course, is supported well by Christ’s own words in the New Testament.
The Lord gave lunch to the people in the first place simply because they were hungry, they needed it, and he "was moved with compassion" (Matthew 14:14, 15:32). He both fed them and taught them, but the knowledge was worth far more than the food–he told them not to labor for that (John 6:27). When he miraculously produced the lunch, they wanted to accept him as their prophet and king (John 6:14–15), even as the Nephites, who when they had eaten and were filled all burst out in one joyful chorus of praise and thanksgiving (3 Nephi 20:9). Why the excitement? Hadn't they ever eaten dinner before? That had nothing to do with it; what thrilled them was seeing clearly and unmistakably the hand of the Giver, and knowing for themselves exactly where it all comes from and that it can never fail. Now if we ask, who at these love–feasts got the biggest share or ate the most? We at once betray the poverty and absurdity of our own precious work–ethic. Such questions would be nothing short of blasphemous to all present, as if one were to interrupt the ordinances and stop the feast by announcing: "Hold it right there, you people! Don't you know that there is no free lunch?"
The free lunch looms large in the Sermon on the Mount. First the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11); this comes with the understanding, expressed in the same sentence, that in return we are to show the same free and liberal spirit towards each other that he does to all of us: "And forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors." Next comes fasting, a most effective reminder of God's generosity to us and also of our complete dependence on him, a thing to be joyfully acknowledged (Matthew 6:16–18). Then an all–important principle; you cannot have it both ways, you cannot work for both employers, you cannot lay up treasures both on earth and in heaven–you cannot divide your heart between them; for to one master or the other you must give your whole and undivided devotion–both employers demand that, but only one of them can have it (Matthew 6:19–20). You must go one way or the other, there can be no compromise (Matthew 6:22–23). "No man can serve two masters": love and hate cannot be divided up between them, "ye cannot serve God and Mammon," mammon being to this day the regular Hebrew word for business, particularly money and banking (Matthew 6:24). You must not yield to the enticings of that other master, nor let his threat of "no lunch if you leave my employ" intimidate you–you must ignore him and his arguments completely: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet ... what ye shall put on" (Matthew 6:25). All such things are taken care of for God's creatures: "Behold the fowls of the air, ... your heavenly Father feeds them. Are ye not much better than they?" (Matthew 6:26). It was the practice in Sodom and Gomorrah, we are told, to rob all strangers of their money and then let them starve to death because they could not buy food; and the cities' inhabitants would put nets over their trees so that the birds would have no free lunch on their fruit. For Abraham, such meanness, as we have seen, was the last straw, and "he cursed them in the name of his God."
Having both been a recipient of much generosity in past from both my church and the federal government, and then in return having been a generous giver when my circumstances improved greatly when I taught on the Navajo Nation and was surrounded by those in need, I already believe fully in the principal of a free lunch. My step-father’s mission was preaching in Canada “without purse or script,” which meant that for much of his two-year mission, he lived off the generosity of nonmembers as he preached the gospel. Every day he and his companion would get up at whatever home they were staying at, have breakfast with the family and then travel the day, preaching, until they found a free bed and meal that night given through the generosity of others, many of whom were extremely poor. Yet, my dad and his companion seldom went hungry.
Originally, I was going to make this response personal, directly to Irene. But, I think I might have had a flash of inspiration. It was short, nothing earth shattering. Just a still, small voice: the laws of God apply to everyone.
And so, here’s how I would part from Nibley. I believe that based on our thoughts and deeds, free lunch is available to everyone.
There was a time in my life when I became very close to becoming homeless. Without a second-chance offer from my parents, I’m sure that would have happened. One night, I seriously considered taking my life. Divine intervention saved me.
However, I was also not living right at the time. I was drinking and spending money on books to avoid personal problems. I was drawn to dark places. Other than crossing the border illegally, I wasn’t living outside the law, but I was participating in every dark deed you can do within the legal limits of the law—which is quite the buffet of bad vibes.
That does not mean I think all destitute are there as a result of their own choices, just as Jews were not in concentration camps because of sins they personally committed. The consequences of evil aren’t always self-induced. Often they are induced by others. Likewise the consequences of breaking the principle of the free-lunch are not always self-induced. However, they are always a result of the laws of God being broken. There has, and by design, always will be enough on earth to provide for everyone. Hunger is a man-made phenomenon. It is not natural, and in a moral society, it must be eradicated for justice to exist. That is why providing food and health care were central to Christ’s ministry on earth. He gave us the perfect example on how to create a just society. We are simply incredibly dull at applying his teachings because we still see justice as an eye for an eye, rather than as a vehicle for transformation. We want to punish rather than enlighten. Ultimately, we believe Satan’s message that there is only so much free lunch and only the worthy (biologically speaking or spiritually speaking—depending on your world-view) are invited to the table. Those without must have done something to deserve their situation. Christ’s view on the other hand is that no one is worthy—we all fall short—but lunch is provided anyway, providing we as individuals, as societies, as a world, are willing to live generously in return.
4. The United States of America,
1930s-1960s: An Example of a Free-Lunch
Program on a Massive Scale
Lately, it has occurred to me that the phenomenal growth and power of the United States during the 20th Century (and the lack of that continued trend in the 21st Century) may be a perfect example of the free-lunch principle.
Is it possible the Great Depression is the direct result of our nation blatantly abandoning the principles Christ taught in the New Testament? Everything that set up the conditions for collapse was rooted in greed of the 1920s: the unequal distribution of wealth, stock market speculation, land speculation, and overworking the land. And then everything that fueled the fall was rooted in the belief that lunch is limited: panic and pulling funds out of the market, panic and pulling funds from banks, fleeing drought-stricken lands, and in the process vacating entire communities, entire counties, great regions of the plains.
And is it equally possible that the greatest boom in the history of this nation, which followed, occurred because we returned to those principles of Christ after being humbled? First, not only did we not blame the victims of the Depression, we didn't even consider the price tag of relief. We had faith that if as a nation we pulled together and provided assistance to those most in need, prosperity would follow. Then when the tyranny arose in Europe, and it looked like the world would be consumed by evil, we pulled together again and were willing make huge sacrifices without a thought as to whether it was economically practical. Individually, people were willing to ration gas, food, domestic life, and even their lives for the good of the world. As a nation, we were willing to arm both free Europe and ourselves with no guarantee the enormous cost of war would ever be paid back. And then after the war, not only were we willing to forgive our enemies, Germany and Japan, but we were willing to invest enormous amounts of money to rebuild them, turning former foes into strong allies. And how did we do this? No former economic model--other than that of Christ--suggested this policy. Our hearts, soul and faith did. Compassion, not intellect, drove our decisions and prosperity followed.
If there is a God, and if Christ's teachings in the New Testament reflect God's law, it follows a nation that has to debate such matters is destined for a downward spiral until justice is dealt and humility received. Oddly, it is often those who scream that we are a God-fearing nation the loudest who are in the iron-grip belief that lunch is limited and that the aged and poor can't be provided for without the economy faltering. The God they believe in is as volatile as the paper they print their trust of him on. Prosperity comes from openness, generosity and faith--not bowing and worshiping the idol of Capitalism.
5. What Does Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Valentine for
Ernest Mann” Have to Do with All This?
My ability to write poems increased greatly the day I realized that a poem isn't as much something that says something as it is a record of energy. Most poems when paraphrased reduce to nil. Try it. Take your favorite Shakespearean sonnet, paraphrase it, and see what you're left with. It won't be much. Rather, it's how the ideas are linked, through images and by sounds that matters. It's the journey you take to the last line. But, it's not the idea contained in the last line that matters, but the intellectual distance traveled between the first line and last line. In short, it's the journey that matters.
"Valentine for Ernest Mann" is a perfect example of this method of writing poetry. Listen again. Notice the leaps she makes, how she trusts that we will be able to follow, rhyming ideas through odd connections.
And yet it works. We get from "You can't order a poem like a taco" to "once I knew a man who gave his wife / two skunks for a valentine" and onward to...
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the off sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.
In fact, because of Nye's trust in her ability, and because the energy is right, we make the journey quite easily. Had she set out to deliver the message in those last lines intellectually, the journey would be far less rich and meaningful. The thesis statement would predict the arrival. We'd end up where we knew we were headed all along. In the process, we wouldn't be in tune with moment, the spectacular connections, twists and turns with each new image, each new vignette, that unfolds before our eyes.
When we put our faith in Christ.... When we believe that as long as we are willing to work, lunch is free... When we are willing to follow the spirit, take whatever lead it gives us... Then will each of our lives unfold like great poems, moment by moment, energy by energy, twisting and turning in miraculously rich ways until we come to an ending (here on earth, anyway) that says more than we ever could have created through a thesis-driven life, where you establish your dream early on and then sacrifice everything to arrive there, only to find out the dream wasn't near as meaningful as the rich and varied life you discarded for it.
6. How do we individually apply the law of the
free-lunch to our lives?
What I'm about to describe here is for me--my thoughts for myself shared with the world. Intuitively, I know they work, but that doesn't mean I'm successful at applying them. That's okay. Life is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. The only one I feel is required for the free lunch is the first. You do have to be at least pointed in the right direction, have a committed heart, but everything else can fall into place naturally as one is ready for it.
1. Decide which plan to follow. Free lunch is a "thank-you" for having a deep reverence for life and a generous heart. You cannot dabble in darkness and expect to receive light. I know this too well from personal experience. Neither can you hold onto your possessions, nor judge others. You must be open. If someone is in need--give. Not for them, but for yourself. It is impossible to receive the free-lunch while thinking "What's in it for me?"
2. Be willing to work and live in the moment. A poem unfolds one line at a time. Some poems, like "Valentine for Ernest Mann," begin in the most concrete, pedestrian of places--
You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
--and then proceed to unfold like roses.
Be willing to be wherever you're at fully now, but don't let the moment or place define you. If you are currently living in a 1-room apartment and working at 7-11, live that life well. Get to know your neighbors. Talk to customers. Help them out. If you are shy, who cares? Talk and help anyways. Stumble. Flounder. Fall. People don't mind it. They actually like it. It allows them to stumble, flounder and fall themselves.
3. Be receptive to energy. Don't be prideful. Allow others to help. Accept help generously. Once you are living fully in the moment, opportunities will open. Some of those opportunities will be good for you. Others will not. There is opposition in all things. Be weary of both the shiny platter and the sure dinner. Satan trusts that deep down we believe lunch is limited and if we don't act now, we'll lose it; or that lunch is limited and if we act now, we'll lose everything. Either way, he's got us. He uses fear to steer us away from opportunity. But, we can listen to the still, small voice instead and know the difference.
4. Look for ways to use your talents. God did not send us here to live lives we were not meant to live. If crocheting is your gift, enrich the lives of others through that gift. When possible, make a living out of your gifts, but also remember lunch is not life. Your bread does not need to define your life. If the rock band won't pay the bills, find something that will, but don't discard the rock band. If music is what you love, then music is why you are here. Play for money if you can; if not play for joy. But play. God does not want you to live practically. He wants you live meaningfully. Your talents are your unique way to touch the divine. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.
5. With every little opportunity that opens, be grateful and give. Christ promises us lunch, not a buffet. This will not necessarily lead to wealth or fame, but it will lead to happiness, which is what everyone really wants anyway.
