Better Off by Eric Brende

Author:Eric Brende
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780061738999
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2004-01-04T10:00:00+00:00

I finally came upon a ramshackle hut in a clearing. Half of the front porch was gone. A corner post hung unsupported from the roof. Spindly trees were growing up around the tilting foundation; plastic covered the windows instead of glass. I was about to pass by, but then I noticed a tin plate, fork, knife, spatula, and black iron skillet neatly arranged on the back porch floor, apparently laid out to dry. Then I saw some movement.

It was Cornelius, with his long gray and charcoal beard. I recognized him from the barn raising. He had come out the back door.

He looked up in surprise, then brightened when he saw who it was. “I would have come to see you,” he said, “if you hadn’t come first.”

I joined him on his porch, and after we shook hands, he signaled me to the door. The interior of the cabin was unexpectedly inviting: dark-stained walls (quite solid-looking and plumb), a desk heaped with old books, a comfortable sofa, armchairs, and a period-piece black woodstove. It was as though the facade of the building had been merely a ruse calculated to ward off all but the most determined ascetics. As I sat on the sofa, he took a seat by the kitchen table. He saw my teeth were chattering and within minutes got a good fire roaring in the stove.

We exchanged a few pleasantries. He seemed to breathe his words rather than speak them, in a voice deep and quavering. Then, with little ado he went to the point, as if he were resuming a conversation we had recently left off.

The Minimite community, he bemoaned, was too affluent! “In the Bible you don’t find any reference to the use of horses. They were used then, but not by the early Christians. Christ rode on a donkey one time, but they had to go find someone to borrow it from. That shows they didn’t own any themselves. The only way they traveled was on foot or by ship. On foot or by ship.” The last words he repeated didactically, as if trying to impress the lesson upon me.

He realized that life had changed after two thousand years, but he felt that the standard of living in biblical times was adequate. No one in the local community, he admitted, paid much attention to him.

“But there’s only one of you in this house,” I said, half-jesting, “Maybe if there were twelve they’d listen more closely.”

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