Revisiting Huck Finn

If I was alive then, I wouldn't have done what they did?

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'" - Matt. 23:27-39

We all would like to believe that if we had been alive during the 1800s, we would not have had slaves, nor would we have associated with people who did.

Really?

What makes us so sure we would be different than people living in the time?

Do we really think that we would have befriended a runaway slave and not turned him in like Huck Finn did with his newfound friend, Jim??

Mark Twain knew how that storyline went against the culture and laws of the times, so he first published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the UK in 1884 before publishing it here in 1885.

And even then, twenty years after the Civil War, the topic was still controversial.  Huck was ready to go to Hell rather than turn his friend into the authorities.

We talk a good talk, especially on social media, condemning those who have opposing views or who seem to be racist, homophobic, or whatever, and yet, we have no idea what it is like to have grown up in a culture that thinks and acts a certain way.

We cannot return to the past and judge it according to our modern views, nor can we expect people who have grown up in a culture other than the one we know to think the way we do.

We can all learn to try to understand one another from a perspective other than our own.

That is what Mark Twain was trying to show us through the semi-literate Huck.

What Huck teaches us is that loving one another comes first.  Once we become friends with someone, all barriers to understanding fall away.

And maybe we find that we are willing to go to Hell rather than turn in someone the society believes is evil or criminal.

More to come...