Passing Through the Waters

Having finished the cheery tome Exodus, about the repeated attempts to annihilate the Jews, I moved on to another sunny and gladsome novel. This one, We the Living, by Ayn Rand, was about crushing poverty and despair during the Communist reign in the USSR. I do not share Rand's spiritual outlook, but she is one who can speak with authority about the horrors of a communist country. It is frightening to read what happened as the Communists took over and how they did so, and then read our own newspapers. I am not happy to be reading these depressing books, but I am too lazy to go out to the library and these were on my shelves. It is like pounding myself over the head with a hammer because it will feel so good when I stop. However, I do think that they are serving a very important purpose right now. First of all, We the Living was Rand's first book, and frankly, I don't think it is all that good. This gives me some hope that my first book will also become a best seller. Admittedly, Rand is amazingly perceptive and intelligent, but she uses the words "smirk" and "sardonic" and even "dog's yowling in the distance" far too often. Her description of Leo falling madly in love with Kira after seeing her twice and saying all of about three sentences to her stretches credulity. If nothing else turns you off to communism, this book will and it does do that masterfully. I just don't think Rand really understood relationships.

At any rate, reading about long lines of starving frozen people waiting for a loaf of bread, forced to call each other "comrade", eating mildewed millet cooked over portable "primus" kerosene stoves, which also warm their one room hovel, and being forced to share their homes with other "citizens" so they each have their one allotted room makes me very thankful for what I have. No matter how dismal it gets here, it cannot equal what Rand described. Not in America....not yet. As I read my Bible study today, the verse from Isaiah 43:2 leaped out at me: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, And through the rivers, they will not overflow you."

Rand's book scares me to death. I wrote to my senator yesterday, begging them to note that I do not approve of this health care bill, not only due to the exorbitant cost but also the trampling on our rights and the constitution. I know that she will likely throw my email out, and I will get a form letter thanking me for my valuable opinion. My other senator actually had an aide call me and discussed my concerns. Of course, he is opposed to the bill. Meanwhile, I cling to that verse in Isaiah. God will be with me as I pass through the waters... I will not drown.... but I think we are all going to get wet.