This blog post is not a book review, but it is based upon a novel that I first learned about from Thinking Friend Anton Jacobs. The book in question is How Beautiful We Were (2020) by Imbolo Mbue.
Author Imbolo Mbue was born in
Cameroon (in 1981), educated in the U.S.,
and became an American citizen in 2014. She now lives in New York
City with her husband and children.
Mbue’s debut novel is the
award-winning Behold the Dreamers (2016) and was selected by Oprah for
her book club. I am currently reading that intriguing book.
But soon after learning about How
Beautiful We Were, I was able to check it out on Kindle from my local
library and to read it in a few days. It is the poignant story of the people
who live in Kosawa, a small village in a fictional African country.
On July 28 (see
here), Anton cited what Yaya, the old grandmother,
said about Christian missionaries who had come to that part of Africa when she
was a little girl. She was troubled by what the missionaries said—and even
though I was a missionary for 38 years, I found their talk troubling also.
But Mbue’s book is not
anti-Christian. In fact, in “Acknowledgments” at the end of the book, she
thanks her aunt “for making me go to Bethel Baptist Church, Kumba”—and says that
“that led me to become the person of faith I am today” (p. 364).
The pivotal issue of How Beautiful We Were is
corporate greed, which caused a severe environmental crisis in Kosawa and
the surrounding area. Paxton, an American petroleum corporation, began working
in that region, and their oil drilling operation led to massive pollution of
the land and water.
An increasing number of children in Kosawa die from
pollution-caused disease, and the once peaceful life of the Kosawa villagers is
increasingly thrown into disarray.
The main struggle against Paxton is led by Thula, the most
precocious child in Kosawa, who ends up spending years getting an education in
the U.S. before returning to Kosawa to continue the fight against Paxton. There
are often signs of apparent improvement, but the struggle ends tragically.
The novel begins in 1980 and
concludes in 2020, the village of Kosawa gone, the descendants mostly working
for Paxton in Africa or even in the United States. The older people still left
in their native country woefully say,
Sometimes we ask our children about the cars they drive. The cars seem to be bigger than they’ve ever been, needing more oil. Do they think about it, about the children who will suffer as we once did just so they can have all the oil they want? (p. 358).
“Progress” seems inevitable when considering industrialism
or capitalism. Rather than people maintaining their traditional way
of life, the lure of money to buy those things that make life easier and,
supposedly, more enjoyable is irresistible. And corporate greed is insatiable.
But as I have already written repeatedly this year, such
“progress” leads to overshoot and the inevitability of the collapse of the world as
we know it. As Thinking Friend David Nelson remarked earlier this week,
“Uncontrolled capitalism is cancerous.” That is a primary reason collapse is
inevitable.
When the collapse will come is not known, and action taken
now can either hasten or delay the collapse. For example, the Inflation Reduction
Act signed by Pres. Biden on Aug. 16 happily postpones the inevitable—but it
does not remove the inevitability.
Someone anonymously posted (on Aug. 10) this comment on my
blogsite: “We are always looking for an alternative to the only true solution—a
radical change in how we consume everything—by consuming far, far less.”
I think that is certainly true—but highly unlikely to
happen. The desire for upward mobility, which includes greater consumption, is boundless;
the willingness to embrace downward mobility is rare—in spite of Henri Nouwen’s
correct insistence that it is “the selfless way of Christ.”**
Sadly, as Jesus declared, “small is the gate and narrow
the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:14, NIV)
_____
** See Nouwen’s The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward
Mobility and the Spiritual Life (2007). I last read that book in Jan. 2021,
noting that it is “a small but quite profound book that could/should be read
often.”
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Good morning, Leroy and all folks reading this blog. It is perhaps not morning where you are. Nevertheless, it is good that all of us are reading Leroy's words that are always so thoughtful and thought-provoking. My (New)heart beats in gratitude for life and for the opportunity to have known Leroy for many years. Maybe that's the word that I want to leave here: gratitude. Leroy ends his blog today with a sentence that begins "Sadly," and perhaps this not his most uplifting entry. But the note at the bottom of the blog is about Nouwen's book on The Selfless Way of Christ. The selfless way of Christ. Perhaps this is the way that we die daily. Die daily, Jesus says in Luke. Die daily.
ReplyDeleteI prepare to go to Providence, RI next week to take a church. Providence the concept has been meaningful to me in recent years, this idea that God is somehow working through all things for the greater good. Yes, working, active, loving, making peace.
Thank you, Leroy, for this meditation in the form of a blog. May it help us in these difficult, difficult times to realize how beautiful we/they/you were--and still are, if we look with the eyes of faith.
Thanks, Michael, for your kind, and forthright, words of affirmation.
DeleteYes, I was sad to begin my final sentence in today's post with "Sadly," but I was not sad that Jesus spoke those words but sad that "only a few" find "the road that leads to life."
I'm enjoying a summer in which, so far, my StL Cardinals are doing very well and won again last night in Arizona. Sometimes in certain circumstances I think about the amount of energy we ask the environment to handle for some rather modest activities. I've sat in an airplane on runways, watching a stream of jets burning fuel as they queue up to leave an airport, each with a few hundred people on board, and wonder about all the energy required for maintaining that airport, the planes, transporting people from home to the airport, and then the operation of the planes themselves. (I read somewhere that, ignoring all the other things related to airline and airport maintenance, planes are actually more fuel efficient transporting people than automobiles.) And sometimes I have the same kind of thought, sitting in a major league baseball or football stadium with tens of thousands of fans, all of whom traveled from somewhere to be there, all the food and drink produced for such events, the maintenance of it all, etc. What kind of environmental footprint has a major league baseball game? Last night on MLB.com I watched Jordan Hicks strike out the last three Diamondbacks after giving up two hits to lead off the ninth inning when the Cardinals had a 5 to 1 lead. (Having played a lot of ball myself, I know the uncomfortable feeling of making the last out during a losing game when you might have made a difference.). To return to Leroy's theme here, I recall a quotation from Anne Lamott's autobiographical "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith." She writes, regarding her father: "He often repeated the old saying that Nature bats last."
ReplyDeleteThanks, as always, for your comments, Anton--and I enjoyed your comments about the St. Louis Cardinals. I started listening to the Cardinals' games not long after you were born and followed them regularly until a couple of years ago when I realized I had to start to cut back on things I was trying to keep up with.
DeleteCertainly, the "progress" of professional sports from the late 1940s, when I became a pro baseball fan, until now is part of the inevitable process I wrote about--and, as you emphasize, an indication of the growth of the environmental problem that is becoming more acute daily.
I hadn't remembered those final words by Anne Lamott, but I think they are quite profound. Nature bats last--and wins: the earth will not be destroyed by the damage humans are causing to the environment. But they are the ones who are going to lose the game. My only earthly hope now is for us who care about the ecological crisis to do all we can to force as many extra innings as possible.
Indeed! Love your extension of the baseball analogy!
DeleteOops! Anonymous here is Anton.
DeleteNot long after Michael posted his comments early this morning, I received the following email from Thinking Friend David Nelson, who is cited in this blog article:
ReplyDelete"Thanks for sharing these reflections and seconding the recommendation to read 'How Beautiful We Were.' Contentment is so satisfying. Most of my acquaintances have very nice homes, good transportation and plenty of food. Like them I don’t need more stuff. I seek to enjoy what I have rather than grasp for more stuff. Could a nation, a world be more like that? Let’s find or create better ways to distribute the wealth and let go of the addiction that bigger and more is always better. The quality of time alone or with others is worth far more than grasping for more stuff."
Thanks, David, for your comments. And, certainly, the first step is for middle- and upper-class people to realize that "enough is enough." But the next step is downward mobility, and that is much harder. Recognizing that smaller and less "is always better" is difficult indeed.
DeleteVern Barnet, another local Thinking Friend, shares these important words:
ReplyDelete"Oil is a pervasive problem illustrating how the environmental, personal, and social crises of our time are interlaced. See https://cres.org/programs2019.htm#ToFRemarks.
"We are doomed unless we move from the Enlightenment growth mentality." ('progress') to ways of sustainability."
Thanks, Vern, for sending these brief comments and for linking to your more lengthy, and quite thought-provoking, comments on the CRES website. I hope many of this blog's readers will read your comments there.
DeleteOne of my local Thinking Friends is Joseph Ndifor, who is from Cameroon. I thought about him when I was reading about author Mbue, so I was delighted to receive this email from him this morning:
ReplyDelete"Nice! I would like to read this recent publication. I have a copy of her first book on my bookshelf, which I'd read a few years ago. In fact, I spoke with her following that first publication when she held a phone conference with many of her Cameroonian fans. Thanks for letting me know about this recent publication."
Leroy, thanks for this post. I wish I could be more optimistic than you, but . . . People often complain about the cost of living going up so much. "Why, when I was young a family could live on one wage earners earnings. Now we have to scrimp to make it on two incomes!" True enough, but what about the standard of living when you and I were young. Most families had one old car. A 1200 sq. ft. house. No air conditioning. No cell phones. No computers. And either of us could expand on that list. Our house did not even have indoor running water until I was 12 years old! Would I be willing to go back to that standard of living? Not voluntarily. And the cultural pressure is for more, more, more. And we are near, maybe we have already reached the point, where more is not sustainable. Thankfully, our hope does not lie in politics or economics. A kinder, gentler politico-economic system could help, but not solve, the problem. (But I am all for a kinder, gentler system). Charles Kiker
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, Charles, and, yes, I remember well the standard of living in the late 1940s and early 1950s. And, yes, we also enjoyed the inevitable "progress" of getting electric lights, indoor plumbing, etc.--but even when I left for college in 1955 we still did not have a TV or air conditioning. But soon after that my parents got both. And now I couldn't get along without my computer (although I don't have, or need, a cell phone since I am home most of the time), and I sure would hate to give up our air conditioning, although even now it is not as hot as it was during the summers of 1953 and 1954 when we did not have AC. So, again, it seems that "progress" is inevitable--and unstainable as you indicated. And while I, too, would like a "kinder, gentler politico-economic system," that isn't likely to appear anytime soon--and most likely would not be able to avoid the coming collapse if it did.
DeleteThis afternoon I received the following comments from Thinking Friend in Chicago:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for sharing your thoughts about the book by Imbolo Mbue. Although it may be fiction, it is evidently a very good description of how oil companies are wrecking lives and the planet. Oil company profits have corrupted our political environment and oil has funded much mischief by the leaders of petrol states (e.g., Russia).
"Our current level of consumption in the US is not sustainable and if we do not address the issue now, there will be a very painful comeuppance at some point in the future. Capitalism has become a cancer, as David Nelson points out, because it has encouraged excess consumption in order to maximize profits. I am not opposed to private enterprise, but small businesses and farmers are being destroyed by large corporations.
"One challenge I see for Judy and me is how to reduce our amount of trash and recycled items, most of which consist of packaging. One way, of course, is to reduce our consumption."
This morning I received the following thought-provoking comments from Thinking Friend Tom Nowlin in Arkansas:
ReplyDelete"Without going too deep into the hamartiology of Christianity, I have often wondered how the human approach to ecology and economics, and concretely the world we find ourselves in, would be different (more in the vein of the sustainability of Wendell Berry, for example), if the dark anthropology of Christianity wasn’t so hegemonic and dominating in the world (all 'groans' under the weight of sin because of the extent of the 'fallenness' of the created order). After all, since all is destined to burn up in the end (at the apocalypse, as most interpret), why not just treat the earth like 'a trash can' as Christians pursue 'the great beyond,' that great metaphysical aspiration of “'salvation'?
Whether descriptive or prescriptive, the Christian message (at least the predominant Evangelical message) is one of 'Why care at all about the world of materiality?' At least, the world of materiality for most Christians, I would wager, hardly registers on their radar. It’s all about the concept of 'salvation' in 'another world,' as if this world is beyond redemption, doesn’t ultimately matter, etc.
"In fairness to capitalism, properly understood, capitalism is not a zero-sum-game. Capitalism requires sustainability – a sustainable supply of raw materials, a sustainable population of consumers, a sustainable interaction between producers and consumers, etc. Capitalism itself is not the culprit. The root problem is self-absorption and greed, at the 'expense' of others. Evangelical Christianity ultimately leads to and emphasizes just a different kind of greed, at the suspense of others (all creation) -- spiritual 'greed' and 'smugness,' because it makes everything all about 'me.' (I even find myself wondering where God fits into all this 'salvation discourse'). After all, isn’t it God’s salvation? 'I' am “saved.” 'I' know 'the truth.' 'I' have the 'Gnosis.' To 'hell' (literally) with everyone and everything else. 'I’m right!' 'You’re wrong!' Is this not today’s hegemonic Christian 'gospel'?
Tom, thanks for your comments, and please excuse my tardy response, which certainly does not mean any lack of appreciation for what you wrote.
DeleteYour criticism of Christianity's lack of constructive responses to the ecological crisis is certainly applicable to most traditional and conservative evangelical (fundamentalist) Christianity today. But that is a type of Christianity I no longer endorse (as I first made public in the 2007 edition of my book "Fed Up with Fundamentalism."
Your critique of Christianity is far from that of most of the Christian thinkers I admire most, such as Brian McLaren and Richard Rohr.
I was struck by your statement, "Capitalism itself is not the culprit. The root problem is self-absorption and greed . . . ." That might well be true, but capitalism is easily "used" by those who are self-absorbed and greedy--even when they ostensibly want to do what is helpful to those are being injured, as author Mbue skillfully depicted in her novel.
The ideology of "free" markets is at the root of the problem with capitalism. There is no such thing as a "free" market, any more than there is such a thing as a perpetual motion machine. All markets need structure, management and policing. Otherwise, they are just a scam where the rich take advantage of the poor. Even back in Bible days there were market regulations, and even explanations for why there were regulations, such as Deuteronomy 25:14-16:
ReplyDelete14 Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. 15 You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 16 For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.