Lone words of a prophet

By Jeff Long

"You stay in school, you college boy. You don't want to end up like this."

Those prescient, even prophetic words were uttered by a machinist at Pittsburgh Des Moines Steel, a company that no longer exists, subsumed long ago by a much larger industrial concern, Chicago Bridge and Iron. The callow, inexperienced 18-year old who heard those words is now somewhat more mature and living in Southeast Missouri.

I'm not wistful about my time working summers at PDM in the mid-1970s. The men who worked permanently at that fabricating plant on a small island near Pittsburgh looked on us college kids with contempt, perhaps jealous of our opportunities, but also fearing we were not sufficiently grateful for the chance none of them received.

These men were forced to work with us because our dads worked in the headquarters building and wore suits and ties. A scattered few were ex-military, but most came straight out of high school to decent-paying jobs. Not only was college out of reach financially, but it seemed pointless. Working in the mill paid well. Why struggle for four years to get an education when the plant offered decent wages right now?

Of course, no one guessed the American steel industry would founder on the shoals of the global marketplace. The reality, even back then, is its product could be made much more cheaply in places such as South Korea.

For most of my life, I've heard without World War II to sustain it, the American steel industry would have been dead by 1950. As it was, it just took a few more decades for the dropsy to take root.

By the time these older workers realized what was happening to steel -- and to heavy manufacturing generally -- it was too late to pivot to another line of work. Even if they had been warned earlier, it probably would have made little difference. They had mortgages and families to support. The old bumper sticker seen around my hometown back in the day spoke truth: "I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go."

Perhaps this experience of youth is why during this particular season of Lent, this writer is drawing meaning from the Old Testament prophets.

The prophets uniformly spoke unpopular messages. These broadsides were aimed not only at ordinary folks, but also to people who held power in society.

A prophet saw what was wrong in the culture, the lack of faithfulness to God, the refusal to provide for the poor, the failure of the Israelites to remember they were once immigrants too, et al., and spoke up. Judgment is coming.

No one wants to hear that. We want to be comforted, not challenged. Take a gander at Facebook sometime.

A security expert spoke at a church-sponsored seminar recently and told the plenary session most Americans are hoodwinked by what he called "a normalcy bias."

Even when a crisis is happening right in front of them, people do not believe their eyes. They assume a man with a weapon walking down the main aisle of a sanctuary must be part of a stunt, a gimmick, a skit.

Their minds won't accept a crime is being committed at that moment.

The expert that day was a kind of prophet. In seeing someone who exhibits body language out of step with that of others in a sanctuary, take the precaution of practicing "aggressive friendliness," which the expert taught us to do in some detail.

In following his instruction, we may avert a crisis. The person suspected of possible malicious intent may back off when confronted by overt graciousness.

While seminar participants grudgingly heard churches were vulnerable to attack, backed up by many irrefutable statistics, they didn't like hearing the message. At all. Such has been plight of prophets throughout time.

I've begun to think of Lent, the season of self-reflection leading to Easter, as the church's way to splashing cold water in all of our faces.

The words of the prophets are clear in every age: Be faithful to God, welcome the stranger, care for the poor. The message doesn't change. Will we?