Englewood Story

Link: http://EyeOnEnglewood.com

This Easter marks the one year anniversary of last year's celebration when the Judge dismissed Englewood's first criminal prosecution of us. So I feel it is appropriate to celebrate with an entry in my journal.

Follow up:

The New York Times best seller, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, details the lives of those Germans trapped inside the politics of the Nazi regime. An older couple takes in a "foster" daughter when her mother is prosecuted because of her husband’s communistic dealings.

As things worsen, a tall young Jew also makes his way to the couple’s home to be hidden. Turns out, Papa was the best friend of this Jewish boy’s Papa in an earlier war, and the German Papa had made a promise many years prior.

Interestingly, this kind of family--having unrelated persons living under one roof--is just as criminal today in Englewood, Colorado as it was in 1942 in Munich, Germany. But, the height of the Book Thief's story pertains to Englewood residents in a special way after the little foster daughter finally learns to read.

Because Liesel's appetite for reading outweighs her appetite for food, she begins to steal books. She reads them not only to her neighbors in a bomb shelter on a regular basis, but she also bravely reads them to the stolen Jew in her own cellar.

When the time comes for parting, Liesel discovers the Jew has left a hand bound fable for her as a present. He has hand-written this story in the girl's honor.

The story explains that the Fuhrer’s people have grown a forest of trees with their words and symbols, but the little girl has cried a single tear and a tree of her own words and symbols grows up in the midst of their forest. Oh dear! It grows taller and stronger than the others.

One day the Fuhrer walks by and is incensed at the outrageous tree overshadowing his own forest. He immediately orders it to be chopped down. Out come the town axes.

The girl screams and cries, but to no avail. Everyone is slinging axes. Finally, she climbs the tree herself and lays down in its branches. The limbs of all her words and symbols cradle her.

Suddenly, the wounds of the tree disappear. None of the axes can mark it. Though the force of the Fuhrer comes against it, the tree’s roots hold. The girl refuses to come down. The tree flourishes because she lives in it. She has hung her hat in its branches.

You can draw your own moral to that story if you wish. I draw these conclusions. The masses are often content to live in the shade of other people’s words and symbols, especially if those people have the power. Power means that the subjects don’t have to think too much about it, because they couldn’t change anything even if they disagreed.

These people are people of beliefs. They believe someone else can do their work for them. They give offerings of praise or critique, but the offerings are like non-essential shavings on a decorated cake.

The words that came from the little girl though, were words of her personal conviction. She was too young to even know she held a conviction. But, she could not escape the truth. All told, she decided she would rather die with those words than be parted.

While beliefs are something you hold: Convictions are something that hold you. This little girl of conviction spun a word tree which survived, and its very survival told a bigger story than just the planting of it.

This Easter, I am reminded of another tale of hope. It is the tale told in chapter one of the Gospel of John. It goes like this. “The Word became flesh and dwelled among us.” The literal mean of “the Word” is not merely any kind of word, but the very expression of God himself. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…”

It’s an interesting correlation that, the correlation of words, expressions and convictions. Isn't it?

Where do you make your home? Where do you hang your hat?