After visiting with The Outsiders in 1960s Tulsa, I went back in time to rural Oklahoma in the 1930s. It seemed to me that Ponyboy and Johnny could have been direct descendents of some of the farmers who lost their land in The Grapes of Wrath.

Instead of traveling across the country on Route 66, these folks moved to the city and took low paying jobs so they could feed their families. Or maybe they went all the way to California and back, deciding that if they were going to be poor anyway, they might as well be back in their home state.

I found it quite interesting that both of these books had a beloved martyr with the initials JC. You know, like Jesus Christ? Life was dismal, but there was eternal hope.

One thing I loved about John Casey in The Grapes of Wrath was that he used to be a preacher, but his humanity and humility made him give it up. Little did he know, those were the very traits that made people want to follow him and listen to him even more. He was a servant leader, a shepherd. He was holy.

Don’t you know? Jesus lives in Oklahoma.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 9th, 2006 at 7:30 pm and is filed under US and Canada, losing my religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.