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May 30, 2003 A couple of weeks ago I taught a Sunday school lesson on phantom verses. These are verses that are often times attributed to the bible but aren’t actually biblical scripture. Such examples are “cleanliness is next to godliness,” (sorry Grandma) and “God helps those who help themselves.” One such saying is “money is the root of all evil.” The closest thing in the bible to that particular saying is 1 Timothy 6:10 which reads “The love of money is the root of all evil.” So basically it’s not the money itself but the love and want of it, materialism to put it in a nutshell. Another piece of scripture that hits on this is Matthew 19:24: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven." The popular notion is that Christ is not talking about the eye of an actual needle but a gate in the wall around Jerusalem. The gate in question was so small that in order to take a camel through it you had to get the camel down onto its haunches so it could sort of crawl through; difficult indeed but not impossible. There have also been people who said that Christ is being literal. That a rich man getting into heaven is as hard as passing a camel through the eye of a real needle, but the popular translation is that it is difficult but not impossible. Both scriptures seem to address the idea that materialism and greed hinder one’s passage into the pearly gates and not the money itself. I hate to disagree with scripture but it seems like the older I get and the more I look at the world around me the more I see that “money is the root of all evil.” If you don’t believe me all you married people out there think back to the first argument that you had with your spouse. How about the next? Or the next? I’ll bet at least one was about money and think about all the worst arguments that you’ve had with your spouse. What were they about, money perhaps? All you young people out there who are planning on getting married maybe you should just go ahead and have all your money arguments right now and get them over with. Also name me a crime whose prime cause is not money. Robbery, yes, drugs yes, (people start selling drugs to make easy money) murder, yes, extortion, blackmail, yes, yes. I guess a lot of sexual crimes don’t relate to money, save pornography, but who knows. I was reading an article the other day that mentioned The Studio Drive-In in Culver City, CA. The Studio opened in the thirties and was the first drive-in theater in the state. It was used in the movies Grease and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure among others. Despite such a storied past it was closed in 1993 and demolished in 1998. Today there’s not even a trace that it was even there. This is sad for me because I remember going to the drive-in around here. It was so much better than a regular theater. It had a certain class to it and I couldn’t help but wonder why they would want to close a theater like the Studio. Well the question should be obvious. You can’t pack twelve screens into a drive-in. You can’t show as many movies and you can’t hand out as many six dollar tickets. This type of thing has taken its toll on a lot of the mom and pop businesses that you used to see scattered all over the country. My mother used to work at a little hardware store. It was the kind of place where people would walk in pick something out and tell the clerk to put it on their tab. Then they would walk out with it and pay up whenever they had the money. The place isn’t there anymore, it was mowed under by such faceless monsters as Wal Mart and Lowes. What first got me on this kick was the fact that there aren’t very many little neighborhood bookstores anymore. Why should I care you ask? It’s because I’m a frustrated writer and one of the reasons that I’m frustrated is that these little stores are disappearing. Let me elaborate. For the last few years I’ve been sending my stories out to various magazines as well as a collection of these stories that I am sending out to perspective publishers. They’re short stories with a lot of down home humor and local color. I’ve gotten some very good feedback. Magazines and publishers have sent back letters that say they liked my work, that I have talent, that my stories are very funny, but that they aren’t going to publish them at this time. “It doesn’t fit our needs” is something that they all like to say. Now I know this may sound like I’m bitter but I think that “doesn’t fit our needs” translates into your work won’t sell a million copies so we’re not interested. You see the little stores are fading, being run out of business by the big chains, Borders, Barnes and Noble, Waldenbooks for example. Think of Sleepless in Seattle. These big businesses want big sellers. They want books that can hit the New York Times Best Seller List and bring in cold hard cash. They’re not into anything new, fresh or visionary. Not that this describes my work but think about it, the next Mark Twain could be out there somewhere but his work isn’t going to be accepted so the way can be paved for the next Danielle Steel, Sandra Brown and their ilk. I think of all the writers who were a little ahead of their time, Oscar Wilde for instance, maybe J.R.R. Tolkien, and I can’t help but wonder if they would even get a second glance in an environment like today. By the way if anybody out there has any suggestions as to how a frustrated writer can get his worked looked at please let me know. Thanks. I’m not offering any answers, shoot as you can tell by the title of this piece I’m not near through with the questions, and I’m not trying to sound like a communist or anything. It’s just that as great as capitalism is sometimes you just wish that it would slow down and all those people who are so obsessed with making money would get their heads out of their backsides and start thinking about what’s best for the country and the world. Well I’m not finished yet, tune in next week friends, same money time, same money channel and we’ll hit on more evils that start with the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Until then TTFN. ------------ About the author: Jonathan Farlow is a frustrated writer/librarian and lives in Archdale, NC with his wife Kathy and daughter Sara. Visit his web site. You can read some of his stories there. Feedback is welcomed. Email: jonathan-farlow@excite.com Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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