Hillbilly Wisdom

I often admire the insight and sagacity of the meek. One of the things I enjoy most is sitting in on a weekly support group meeting in downtown Mesa, AZ. Most of the attendees live under the humblest of circumstances. Many are homeless. I am inspired each week, without fail, by the insight that only these circumstances are able to create. I always learn.

The following is a brief dialogue between young Tom Joad and the old preacher, Casy from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

Casy spoke again, and his voice rang with pain and confusion. "I says, 'What's this call, this sperit?' An' I says, 'It's love. I love people so much I'm fit to bust sometimes.' An' I says, 'Don't you love Jesus?' Well, I thought an' thought, an' finally I says, 'No, I don't know nobody name' Jesus. I know a bunch of stories, but I only love people. An' sometime's I love 'em fit to bust, an' I want to make 'em happy.' An' then- I been talking a hell of alot. Maybe you wonder about me using bad words. Well, they aint bad to me no more. They're jus' words folks use, an' they don't mean nothin' bad by 'em. Anyways, I'll tell you one more thing I thought out; an' from a preacher it's the most unreligious thing, an' I can't be a preacher no more because I thought it an' I believe it."

"What's that?" Joad asked.

Casy looked shyly at him. "If it hits you wrong, don't take no offense at it, will you?"

"I don't take no offense 'cept a bust in the nose," said Joad. "What did you figger?"

"I figgered about the Holy Sperit and the Jesus road. I figgered, 'Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,' I figgered, 'maybe it's all men an' all women we love; Maybe that's the Holy Sperit- the HUMAN Sperit- the whole Shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's part of.' Now I sat there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent- I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true. An' I still know it."