Posts Tagged: Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“Humility Keepers”

On May 29, 2023 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

 Stewart Rhodes, the founder of Oath Keepers, was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for his role in planning the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. capitol. When he was allowed to speak at his sentencing, he compared himself to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a political prisoner for many years because of his opposition to Joseph Stalin. Rhodes claimed that he would be “an American Solzhenitsyn.”

I haven’t read a lot of Solzhenitsyn and have to look up his name every time to get the spelling correct. His books are as vast and sprawling as the Soviet Union itself was back in the day. However, I do remember one thing that he said:

“The line between good and evil runs not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.”

If the line between good and evil runs through every human heart, then we all need to stop thinking that all our problems are “out there” and that they are caused by someone else. It isn’t the Republicans or the Democrats, Biden or Trump, who are causing my problems or ours. It is me, and it is the “us” that includes “me”.

One of the most profound human and political truths ever written was penned by the creator of a cartoon strip, “Pogo” for Earth Day in 1970: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

This is of course a play on a famous saying from The War of 1812. The United States Navy defeated the British Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie. Master Commandant Oliver Perry wrote to Major General William Henry Harrison, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” However, in the form of a funny play on words is a truth as deadly as an assault rifle and as life-giving as the air we breathe: We are often our own worst enemies. Sometimes, we are our only enemies.

So, what is humility? It is recognizing the truth, as my brother used to say, “Ahh, I ain’t such a much.” None of us is such a much.

And yet, humility is very short supply these days in our county. I’m not sure that we even regard it as a virtue these days. Humility is so rare that it would be difficult to even recognize it. Humility is the persistent awareness that the line between good and evil is within each of us.

Here is the problem as I see it: It is so much easier to dwell on the evil in _________________. (Fill in the blank with your favorite, least-favorite person/group/ institution.) However, it is so much easier to call out the evils in others or in society than it is to face the evil within me. It’s more fun, too!

In the interest of full disclosure, I have my own least-favorites list, and it is a long one. I’m working on crossing off people, institutions, and events on that list, but it’s hard work. Nevertheless, I truly believe that there are only two kinds of people in the world—those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t.

See? I told you this is hard.

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