Keep Moving

I’m re-reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible and impressed yet again by her writing. It’s not a fun or easy book by any stretch of the imagination, but through her powerful and poetic words, you can palpably feel her strength and courage in meeting life’s most extreme sufferings head on. It’s the story of a family brought by their religiously fanatic missionary father to the Congo in the 1960’s. Finally gathering the gumption to leave her husband Nathan and save her children in the midst of war, the character of Orleanna writes:

 

“Nathan was something that had happened to us, as devastating in its way at the burning roof that fell on the family Mwanza; with our fate scarred by hell and brimstone we still had to track our course. And it happened finally by the grace of hell and brimstone that I had to keep moving. I moved and he stood still. 

 

But his kind will always lose in the end. I know this, and I know why. Whether it’s wife or nation they occupy, their mistake is the same; they stand still and their stake moves underneath them. Chains rattle, rivers roll, animals startle and bolt, forests inspire and expand, babies stretch open-mouthed from the womb, new seedlings arch their necks and creep forward into the light. Even a language won’t stand still. A territory is only possessed for a moment in time. They stake everything on that moment posing for photographs while planting the flag casting themselves in bronze. Washington crossing the Delaware. The capture of Okinawa. They’re desperate to hang on.

 

But they can’t. Even before the flagpole begins to peel and splinter, the ground underneath arches and slides forward into its own new destiny. It may bear the marks of boots on its back, but those marks become the possessions of the land. …Forbidden to make engines of war, Japan made automobiles instead and won the world. It all moves on. The great Delaware rolls on while Mr. Washington himself is no longer even what you’d call good compost. The Congo River, being of a different temperament, drowned most of its conquerors. In Congo a slashed jungle quickly becomes a field of flowers.…”

 

Potent words, compelling images, fierce hopes that the fanatics will lose in the end. Trying to roll the river back and make their nation “great again” by returning to the hellish brimstone that burned the lives of the innocent while they sipped mint juleps on the front porch, their “victories” are destined for failure. Hard to imagine that now, when they seem to have risen up again endorsed by those who choose stagnation over the future we deserve. But a crumb of comfort to imagine that in the larger picture, they will be out of the frame. As Gandhi once said:

 

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”

 

It would be easy to be frozen in fear and perpetual disbelief, but the advice is clear: Keep moving. 

 

And that I will. Starting with a post-Thanksgiving hike with my grandchildren.