Today’s Scripture Reading (April 10,
2013): Proverbs 17
I love to
read Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was the first American writer to make his living with
just his writing (unfortunately that also meant that he would lead a
financially challenged and troubled life.) Poe is most widely known for his
tales of the macabre, but it was not only those scary types stories that he
wrote. And some of my favorite Poe stories actually fall into the genre of
mystery.
One of my
favorite of Poe mystery’s is “The Purloined Letter.” Written in 1844, it is the
first of three mysteries involving the fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin and
involves a certain stolen letter. The authorities have a suspect and they have
thoroughly searched the residence of the accused – including measuring and
poking everything to make sure that there are no hidden compartments or rooms
in which the subject could have hidden the letter, but all such efforts have
come up empty. Finally the detective finds the letter, crumpled as if it had
been discarded and then placed it with other papers hanging from a ribbon on
the wall. Dupin observes that thief was not stupid enough to believe that the
police would not make an extensive search of the hiding places in his abode, so
he had hidden the letter in plain sight – a place where the meticulous police
would never think of looking.
This proverb
has been rendered - 'One who is fond of crime must be fond
of trouble, and to make one's doorway inaccessible is to invite destruction.' The idea is almost tongue in cheek. The proverb stresses that
what crime brings you is not fortune or riches or even revenge. These are some
of the obvious reasons for why a person would commit a crime, but they are not
the most likely result. According to the proverb the reader is warned that the
most likely result of crime is trouble. In the same way one who builds a high
(or inaccessible) door must love destruction. And the reasoning is quite close
to the plot of “The Purloined Letter” – if you build a high gate you must have
something inside the door that you need to protect – and is worth stealing. We
think that a high gate will shelter us, but in reality it just invites those
that love crime (and trouble) to come look for what it is that we have. The
best way to protect something is to not let anyone know that it is there – or
to make it look like it could not be something of value.
The proverb
and Poe both remind us that the intended objective and the obtained objective
are seldom the same. We are sometime surprised by that fact, but the truth is
that it is these unintended results are the ones that will most likely be the
predominate shapers of our lives – and that the safest millionaires in our
society are the ones we walk with on a daily basis, but in their anonymity no
one recognizes who it is that they are. The normality of their lifestyle
becomes the wall that protects their fortune.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading:
Proverbs 18
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