Adversity and Human Life

I finished reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck today. To say I was touched by this book would be a gross understatement. At first, I was disgusted by the ending, but the book has been in my thoughts all day and I need to write some things down. The book is set during the era of the Great Depression. It is about the Joad family who were sharecroppers in Oklahoma. The land in Oklahoma stopped being fertile and they were forced off of the land and to find work elsewhere. They set out for California after receiving a flyer about work. Along the way, they lost their dog, Grampa and Granma. After they got there, one of the sons, Noah, took off, their friend Casy was carted off to jail for no reason and their daughter's husband, Connie, left. Their family was torn apart by the hardships of just getting to and arriving in California. The flyer promised work and riches for people, but what was really happening was and still is horrific. The Greedy landowners lured people going through hard times out to California to have them work their fields for a week during picking time, gave them "wages"that they couldn't feed a family on and then cast them away like cattle. Actually farmers don't treat cattle that badly. These people were so greedy that they ignored the sanctity of human life. The people of California hated the "Okies" for taking over their state, but they didn't do anything about it. They didn't care that they came out there to work to be able to feed their families. Instead, the Okies were met with only hardships, starvation and hatred. What a horrible thing for humans to do to other humans. Starvation has got to be one of the worst ways to die. I can't even imagine. And it was all done because of the almighty dollar. Something that doesn't even matter in the long run. You can't take it with you and God isn't going to care how much of it you have. This book has made my mind reel thinking about all of the tragedy life holds. Helping one another is one of life's greatest pleasures and something we are commanded to do by God. Please don't ever find yourself in a situation where you pick money over human life. Money isn't worth it, but people are.