Weekly Reaction #12 - The Quiet Cancer of Pride

Pride is a strange thing. We sometimes think of it as a good thing, a necessary thing. It is the driving force behind hard work and accomplishments, right? Now, taking pride in your work is not necessarily a bad thing but I think we need another word for that kind of pride because all God can see in pride is destruction. Pride is condemned as an atrocity in the Bible over and over again whether through the example of an old testament story or the preachings and teachings of the new testament. This semester, we have pointed to pride as one of the culprits behind the problems of earthly stewardship. I think a good example of pride and its effects is captured Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres.

My group and I read and presented our take-aways from the novel. I loved this book! It was so honest and raw. There was no sugar-coating of reality. The characters were never completely lovable or redeemable. They all had flaws and dark secrets which made the book somewhat relatable (despite its general exaggeration and drama). No one is perfect and, in our broken world, there are not many cut and dried happy endings. So, with this is mind, A Thousand Acres is a good candidate to draw real world parallels from and, if you haven’t already guessed, I’m choosing to highlight the destruction of pride.

Pride tore the Cook family apart. It is also what created the family. A few chapters of the book discuss the origins of their family’s settlement in Zebulon County. The land that the Cooks farmed was not always so fertile and productive. In fact, it had been swamp land once. But their great grandparents worked for years to drain the water away. People laughed with skepticism when they heard that the Cooks’ predecessors wanted to farm in a swamp. So, the dedication, hard labor, and success despite the negativity of neighbors instilled a sense of pride in the Cooks. The land was theirs to use as they please. They built it themselves no thanks to anyone else.

This pride in one’s power and control is a factor to what created Larry Cook, a farmer, husband, and father who, at the same time, was a sexual predator and obsessive controller. Larry found his pride in his control over his land and daughters. He controlled his young daughters by abusing them physically and sexually and he controlled his land by using any and all new farming practices from tractors to harmful herbicides, fertilizers, and pesticides.

But this is where pride is funny. Larry’s daughters, Ginny and Rose, could have exposed all of their father’s true nature but, because of pride, chose to keep up a façade of normalcy. Micah talked about this a bit during our presentation. Ginny and Rose chose to hide their family’s flaws and failures so as to prove to others the ordinariness of their family. For so many years, the two sisters kept secrets, took care of their father, worked on their father’s farm, went to church, and kept up with the neighbors. This is why the events of the book were so destructive. The family went from a seemingly functional unit of people to a deeply bitter, angry, and divided group of enemies. The somewhat small (although often times very important) family matter of inheritance exploded into a mess of adultery, betrayal, abuse, and incurable wounds. Their pride was a cancer quietly building underneath the surface of their family only to be recognized after irreversible damage.

The irony in all of this is that because Rose and Ginny tried so hard to produce the appearance of normality, there was never any justice for their father. Because they never spoke out or exposed the actuality of their father’s nature, no one ever knew of his sin.

I think this can be directly applied to this semester’s subject of creation care and sustainability. Pride has been an enormous factor in the problem and in the lack of certain solutions. We are too proud to own up to our failures. Because of this, we either are completely ignorant of the state of the Earth or we choose to ignore the problem. I can’t decide which is worse. For me personally, it is so very tempting to completely ignore everything we have been learning about this semester. It is hard to admit that we as a culture have been living in excess and contempt of creation.

“Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished” (Proverbs 16:5, ESV).
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18, ESV).
“One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor” (Proverbs 29:23, ESV).
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom” (Proverbs 11:2, ESV).

Let us not let pride in ourselves, in our culture, or in our supposed superiority as humans blind us to wisdom. Humility is the road that will lead to reconciliation.