Along with other prisoners, he worked in the fields day after day, in rain and sun, during summer and winter. His life appeared to be nothing more than backbreaking labor and slow starvation. The intense suffering reduced him to a state of despair.
On one particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much for him. He saw no reason to continue his struggle, no reason to keep on living. His life made no difference in the world. So he gave up.
Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.
As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.
Solzhenitsyn slowly rose to his feet, picked up his shovel, and went back to work. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Inside, he had received hope.
This is a 1993 translation of a passage from The Gulalg Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
It bears more than a passing resemblance to the teary eyed tale John McCain told at Rick Warrens Evangelical Conference on Saturday. CNN reported it like this:
"McCain got teary-eyed while discussing an experience with a guard during his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The guard, McCain said, drew a cross in the sand while he was praying on Christmas Day. "For a minute there, we were just two Christians worshipping together."
In fact,McCain even told it in the Christmas ad in the video, last year.
But McCain's ad doesn't even jibe with the story he told Saturday night - notice the stick drawing the cross. Here's how McCain told the tale last night.
"Iw was Christmas Day, we were allowed to stand outside of our cell for a few minutes, and those days we were not allowed to see or communicate with each other although we certainly did. I was standing outside for my few minutes, outside my cell. He came walking up. He stood there for a minute and with his sandal on the dirt in the courtyard he drew a cross and he stood there, and a minute later, he rubbed it out and walked away. For a minute there, there was just two christians worshipping together."
Stick or sandal, Senator? This is the Packers-Steelers story all over again, with the added twist of stealing a story from a dead Russian.
2 comments:
But, microdot, will the People know the difference? And if they don't then the slick McCain has won more votes.
On and on it goes...
Well, that's the purpose of even writing about this. If it gives someone the intellectual evidence to make the point that McCain is a charlatan...and I am beginning to believe the worst kind, a self deluded charlatan...a mythomaniac who believes his own myths...
If I can give youu the intellectual ammunition to show someone else, it is worth it!
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