CC BY
29nAPEMHO^OrHH
Y^K 811.111 Mieder Wolfgang
Department of German and Russian, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont 05405 (USA), tel.: (802) 6561475, e-mail: Wolfgang.mieder@uvm.edu
"GOD AND THE DEVIL ARE IN THE DETAILS" SECULARIZED RELIGION IN MODERN ANGLO-AMERICAN PROVERBS
Many proverbs of the Bible, both from the Old and New Testament, continue to be current today without people necessarily recalling their origin. There are also many older folk proverbs that refer to God, the devil, faith, prayers, and other religious matters with the most well-known being "God helps those who help themselves." Realizing that modern life has become more secularized, it is of interest to study modern Anglo-American proverbs that concern themselves with this topic. The best known are doubtlessly "God is in the details " and its variant "The devil is in the details. " Quite a few of the almost sixty proverbs presented here refer to God as a rather pragmatic force that helps to deal with everyday life, to wit "God can make a way out of no way. " Folk wisdom has also come up with proverbs commenting about prayers and praying that look at this activity in quite a realistic fashion, as for example "When you pray, move your feet. " There is no sainthood in these proverbs, but some of them contain didactic messages as well as calls for humility, as can be seen from such texts as "Trust in God, but lock your door" and "There are no atheists in foxholes. " Of course, there are also parodistic anti-proverbs like "Love your neighbor but don't get caught" that have gained proverbial status in a society with less taboos. In general, the religiously informed modern proverbs stress worldly mores, they tend towards secular pragmatism, they contain solid wisdom, and they express their worldview in meaningful imperatives. They reflect modernity and show that either God or the devil are in the details as life's journeys move forward.
Keywords: Anglo-American, anti-proverb, Bible, devil, didacticism, faith, God, modernity, prayer, proverb, religion, worldview.
Introduction
The sacred writings of the world's religions are replete with proverbs of which many remain current to this day. They are registered in Selwyn Gurney Champion's comparative collection of The Eleven Religions and Their Proverbial Lore (1945) and Albert Kirby Griffin's compendium of Religious Proverbs. Over 1600 Adages from 18 Faiths Worldwide (1991), with Wolfgang Mieder's collection Not By Bread Alone. Proverbs of the Bible (1990) containing 425 texts that have enjoyed widespread use in oral and written communication over the centuries [Trench, 1905, 118-144; Taylor, 1931, p. 52-61; Beardslee, 1970; Fontaine, 1982; Winton, 199]. While they might not be particularly spiritual, they offer ethical guidance and secular wisdom plus the kind of common sense that can endure during ever-changing times. A few well-known examples from the Old Testament are "Wisdom is better than gold" (Proverbs 16:16), "In the sweat of your brows shall you eat bread" (Genesis 3:19), "Pride goes before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18), "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9), and "A leopard cannot change his spots" (Jeremiah 13:23). To the truly "classical" New Testament proverbs belong "A prophet is not without honor save in his own
country" (Matthew 13:57, Luke 4:24), "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41, Mark 14:38), "Let the one without sin cast the first stone" (John 8:7), "It is better to give than to receive" Acts 20:35), and "The love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). Many proverbs reappear numerous times throughout the Bible, and it should not come as a surprise that they continue to be frequently employed today, such as "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" (Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, Deuteronomy 19:21, Matthew 5:39), "Beat your swords into plowshares and your spears into pruning hooks" (Isaiah 2:4, Joel 3:10, Micas 4:3), "Eat. drink, and be merry" (Ecclesiastes 8:15, Luke 12:19), and the biblical proverb "Man does not live by bread alone" (Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4). Naturally there are also proverbs about God and the devil, to wit "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away" (Job 1:21) , "All things are possible with God" (Matthew 19:26), "The devil can transform himself into an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11: 14), and "Resist the devil, and he will flee from thee" (James 4:7).
Main part
The scholarship on religious wisdom literature in general and Bible proverbs in particular is vast indeed [Mieder, 2009a], with Alan Dundes' seminal book Holy Writ as Oral Lit. The Bible as Folklore [Holy Writ as Oral Lit. The Bible as Folklore, 1999, p. 9-10, 79-82, and 113-114] deserving special mention for its folkloric and paremiological point of view. In the case of many of these proverbs, people are not necessarily aware of the fact that they stem from the Bible. They employ them just as they do the hundreds of folk proverbs that deal with all aspects of religious life. Here are but a few of literally hundreds of such proverbs from A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992) edited by Wolfgang Mieder, Stewart A. Kingsbury, and Kelsie B. Harder: "The nearer the church, the farther from God," "God's mill grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly fine," "The devil is not as black as he is painted," "A man without religion is a horse without a bridle", "Pray to God, but keep hammering," "He is a good preacher who follows his own preaching," "The greater the sinner, the greater the saint," "Idle hands are the devil's tools," "God gives all things to industry," etc. The best-known proverb is probably "God helps those who help themselves" that has been current in English since the sixteenth century and was effectively used at the time of the American Revolution by Abigail Adams [Mieder, 2005, p. 62-64]. In this wording or in the variant "Heaven helps those who help themselves" it has been traced back to antiquity and has been recorded in more than forty-five European languages [Paczolay, 1997, p. 150-154]. However, there is a small problem with the English text if one thinks about the second part in connection with the verbal phrase "to help oneself" and its meaning of taking for oneself and even stealing for oneself. This has led to such telling anti-proverbs as:
God helps those that get caught helping themselves. (1965)
A thief is another man who believes that heaven helps those who help themselves. (1968)
Go help those who do not help themselves. (1992)
God helps those who help themselves ... murmured the thief as he broke a window and helped himself to a TV set. (1997)
[Litovkina, Mieder, 2006, p. 154-155]
Things are quite similar with the proverb "Man proposes, God disposes" that is current in at least forty languages [Paczolay, 1997, p. 308-311]. While it might be considered an allusion to the Biblical verse "A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps" (Proverbs 16:9), it is in fact a folk rendering of its message that continues to ring loud and clear as a religious but also secular message. But there are, expectedly so, also plenty anti-proverbs having their fun with this proverb expressing humility:
Man proposes, and mother-in-law opposes (1952).
Man proposes, and the computer disposes (1967).
Man proposes and marriage exposes (1968).
Man proposes - woman refuses (2004) [Litovkina, Mieder, 2006, p. 212].
A third proverb should also be mentioned, namely the classical Latin "Vox populi, vox dei" that appears in multiple translations and has been current in English since the early fourteenth century as "The voice of the people is the voice of God" [Gallacher, 1945; Boas, 1969, 3-38]. It has its serious sociopolitical implications for today's democracies, but it too has also been parodied as "The vice of the people is the voice of the press" (1968) [Litovkina, Mieder, 2006, p. 294]. Much more serious is how Adolf Hitler, seeing himself as the "voice of God" for National Socialism, perverted this proverb in a speech of 16 March 1936: "German people [...] I await your decision, and I know I will be proven right! I will accept your decision as the voice of the people, which is the voice of God." Victor Klemperer, who as a Jew survived the Holocaust while observing the language of the Nazis speaks of the insolent lies that were spread by the Nazi leaders under the guise of the "people's voice" and notes: "However, there is no vox populi, only voces populi; and it can only be determined after the fact which of these different voices is the true one, that is to say, which of them determines the course of events" (for these references see [Mieder, 2001, p. 109110]. Clearly there were many desperate voices in Germany, and not all of them spoke in unison with Hitler as the impersonation of the devil! All of this brings to mind the proverb "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God" [Mieder, Kingsbury, Harder, 1992, p. 501] which Thomas Jefferson adopted as his motto from the British judge John Bradshaw (1602-1659) in a letter of 24 February 1823 [Shapiro, 2006, p. 99]. It was picked up in the variant "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God" by the abolitionist Theodore Parker in 1846 (1810-1860, see [Kraller, 2016, p. 191-193] and Frederick Douglass (1818-1895, see [Mieder, 2001, p. 409-410] on numerous occasions and could well have served those Germans who resisted the Nazi tyranny. The proverb certainly gives a divine blessing to those who fight for freedom.
But returning to the richness of Biblical proverbs and folk proverbs dealing with religious matters it must seem strange that cultural historians and folklorists hardly ever mention them in their otherwise valuable discussions of religious folklore [Rosenber,g 1970; Mieder, 2004, p. 144146]. To be sure, Alyce M. McKenzie cites many Biblical proverbs in her two significant books Preaching Proverbs. Wisdom for the Pulpit (1996) and Preaching Biblical Wisdom in a Self-Help Society (2002), but she does not include folk proverbs having to do with faith, God, prayer, and other religious concerns (McKenzie 1995). Things are even less "proverbial" - if at all - in various folkloric essays on religion, to wit such informative studies as John C. Messenger's "Folk Religion" (1972), William Samarin's Language in Religious Practice (1976), Larry Danielson's "Religious Folklore" (1986), Diane E. Goldstein's "The Secularization of Religious Ethnography and Narrative Competence in a Discourse of Faith" (1995), Leonard Norman Primiano's "Vernacular Religion and the Search for Method in Religious Folklore" (1995), and William M. Clements' "Folklore and Folklife of American Religious Communities" (2019). While these essays deal with the important relationship of anthropology and folklore with religious matters, they do not touch on folk speech matters in general and proverbial speech in particular. And yet, it is obviously of much interest to discover what new proverbs have been created during the past hundred years that comment on modern religious attitudes (Doyle 1996). Of the 1617 Anglo-American proverbs that have been registered in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs [Doyle, Mieder, Shapiro, 2012] and its three supplements [Doyle, Mieder, 2016, 2018 and 2020] only 59 or 3.6 % deal with religion in its widest sense. However, an analysis of this modern secularized wisdom will provide at least a glimpse into today's preoccupation with God, the devil, faith, prayer, and much more.
While the dualistic statement "God and the devil are in the details" in this precise wording results in close to forty thousand Google hits, it is perhaps too cumbersome and unnecessarily complex to be considered proverbial. After all, the two proverbs "God is in the details" and "The devil is in the details" exist as current phrases expressing the insight that paying attention to seemingly small matters is of importance. It has now been established that the proverb "God is in the details" (125, 102-103; texts are cited with the first recorded date and the page number in the dictionary or supplements) was not coined by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe but rather by the German art historian Aby Warburg who announced the topic of a seminar at Hamburg University on 11 November 1925 with "Der liebe Gott steckt im Detail." Mies enjoyed citing it in English and helped to spread it more widely. While the "dear" God might speak through vexing details, it is, of course, the devil as his counterpart that can drive people to distraction. Little wonder that the anti-proverb "The devil is in the details" (1963, 53-54) caught on a few decades later. Both proverbs enjoy currency today, with the "devil"-text with its ironic tone having become the preferred formulation, to wit Hillary Clinton's use of it:
Of course, in politics, as in life, the devil is in the details. The details of welfare reform or budget negotiations were hard fought and difficult and sometimes resembled a Rubik's Cube more than an isosceles triangle [Hillary Rodham Clinton, Living History. New York: Scribner, 2003, p. 290] [Mieder, 2019, p. 223-224].
Both God and the devil occur frequently in the proverbs of many languages as can be seen from Teodor Flonta's polyglot collection God and the Devil: Proverbs in 9 European Languages (2002, see also [Acker, 1977; Beckmann, 1995; Miclea, 2010; Richterova, 2013; Szcz^k, Gondek, 2005a, 2005b]. But it is of interest to observe that while the devil as a recurrent figure in folk-belief expressions (Whiting 1938) has lost his appeal as far as modern proverbs are concerned. He appears in three cautionary proverbs based on the old structure "If you X, you Y": If you lie down with the devil, you will wake up in hell (1972, 54). If you dance with the devil, you will be burned (1996, 54).
If you keep knocking on the devil's door, (sooner or later) somebody's going to answer (1999, 54).
A warning is also expressed in the proverb "Do not greet the devil till (before) you meet him" (1905, 54), basically stating that one need not worry until something bad occurs. A bit of professional stereotyping is going on in the proverb "Go to the devil for truth and to a lawyer for a lie" (1930, 54) that takes dishonest lawyers to task. But where the devil comes into play, his abode in hell is bound to appear as in the despair expressed in the proverb "It's hell being (to be) poor" (1904, 120). But there is also the more proactive advice that has spuriously been attributed to Winston Churchill at times: "If (When) you're going through hell, keep going" (1990) [Doyle, Mieder, 2016, p. 102].
Heaven being the opposite of hell, it should not be surprising that there are at least a few proverbs that use it as a positive metaphor. A fine example had its start with the song "Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl" by Edgar Smith and A. Baldwin Stone, sung by Marie Dressler in the show Tillie's Nightmare (1910). The first stanza of this "Burlesque Ballad" with the song's title as the refrain goes like this:
A village maid was leaving home with tears her eyes was wet,
Her mother dear was standing near the spot.
She says to her "Neuralgia, dear, I hope you won't forget
That I'm the only mother you have got.
The city is a wicked place as anyone can see,
And cruel dangers 'round your path may hurl.
So ev'ry week you'd better send your wages back to me,
For Heaven will protect a working girl" [https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/440].
The refrain became popular as the proverb "Heaven protects (will protect) the working girl" (1909, 119), with a variant exchanging "heaven" with the all-powerful and benevolent God.
Another proverb passed into oral tradition from George Bernard Shaw's list of "Maxims for Revolutionists" that he appended to his Man and Superman (1904): "In heaven an angel is nobody in particular (nobody special)" (1904, 120). That somewhat disappointing piece of wisdom does not prevent people - believers and non-believers alike - of wanting to get to heaven, but preferably later and not sooner. The proverb "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die" (1948, 119) originated with the title of Thomas Henry Delaney's (1899-1963) song "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven (but No One Wants to Die)" (1948) that was recorded by Tommy Dorsey in February 1951:
Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven
Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die!
Everybody says they're not afraid; I wonder why?
They say they can't wait for the day, but when it comes, they want to stay!
Yes, everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die!
I'm telling ya, everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die!
Everybody says they'd go right now, but how they lie!
They want to see the Promised Land, but dyin' for it ain't too grand.
Yes, everybody wants to go to Heaven, hmm, but nobody wants to die.
Everybody wants to get up there, but nobody wants to give it up!
Everybody wants to meet St. Pete; well, that's all reet! [right]
But they'd call the doctor when they're sick and say, "Please cure me, quick, quick, quick!"
Everybody wants to go to Heaven, oh, but nobody wants to die!
I tell you, folks, it's a phenomenum-num-num-num-num!
Everybody wants to go there, but nobody wants to expire!
Everybody wants to hear angels sing in the sky.
Now, I must admit, I'm just like you; I'm stallin' on that journey, too!
Everybody wants to go to Heaven, oh, but nobody wants to die!
Everybody wants to sprout wings, but nobody wants to kick the bucket!
Now, they know darn well they gotta die to get up there, still they try to duck it!
Now, they know that Gabriel with his horn can blow, but they'd rather stay here and dig ol'
Satchmo!
Everybody wants to go to Heaven, oh, but nobody wants to die!
I said no-no-no-no-nobody wants to die!
The earliest printed lyrics my friend Michael Taft could find are: Les Brown's Band of Renown, with vocalist Butch Stone, recorded on 16 February 1952 [https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=64742].
When death does come eventually, the hope is that the final resting place will not be with the devil in hell but rather with God in heaven. And yet, in light of the fact that secularization has gained a strong foothold in the modern world, it is surprising that God appears in a considerable number of proverbs coined in the twentieth century [Mieder, 2020b, p. 78-80]. This even includes the proverbial rallying cry "Cleanliness of the body is due reverence to God" that had been placed on a Boston bathhouse in 1931 with an obvious reference to the much older proverb "Cleanliness is next to godliness" dating back to 1605 [Buccitelli , 2008]. As will become clear from the following examples,
the proverbs are by no means great spiritual or emotional truths but rather straight-forward observations about the trials and tribulations of social life with at times giving a bit of common-sense advice as has always been the case with didactic proverbs. No wonder that they find effective use in therapeutic and inspirational settings and literature (Arthurs 1994, Eret 2001: 93-96, Dolby 2005: 138-141). One is reminded of the sixteenth-century proverb "Where God has a church, the devil has a chapel" [Mieder, Kingsbury, Harder, 1992, p. 256] and its modern less metaphorical equivalent with the same message: "Where God goes (is), the devil goes (is)" (1926, 105).
Several proverbs follow the very basic structure "God doesn't ..." making clear that God is in control of everything:
God doesn't love ugly (1910, 102-103).
Implied are bad deeds.
God doesn't play dice (1926, 103).
The proverb appears first in a letter of Albert Einstein to Max Born of 4 December 1926: "Quantum mechanics is very worthy of regard. But an inner voice tells me that this is not yet the right track. The theory yields much, but it hardly brings us closer to the Old One's [God's] secrets. I, in any case, am convinced that He does not play dice" [Shapiro, 2006, p. 228]. The German original states "Jedenfalls bin ich überzeugt, dass der [Gott] nicht würfelt."
God doesn't make land anymore (1968, 136).
The proverb originated with realtors and is also cited in its longer variant "Buy land, they don't make it anymore."
God doesn't make junk (trash) (1975, 103).
President Barack Obama cited the proverb in his celebrated autobiography Dreams from My Father (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004 [originally published 1995]), p. 232: Dr. Martha Collier's "office was sparsely furnished, the walls bare except for few community service awards and a poster of a young black boy that read 'God Don't Make No Junk'." [Mieder, 2009b, p. 224]
The proverb "God ain't choosy" (1952, 102) seems to fit to the spirit of these short proverbial claims. It implies that God is there for everybody no matter what. Of course, his omnipresence should be accepted at all costs with the proviso that people are responsible for their own actions:
God made dirt; dirt don't hurt (1994, 104).
A saying used with children after they drop food on the ground or floor and brush it off and eat it. There is also the related modern proverb "A little dirt never hurt" (1904, 56).
God sends no cross that you cannot bear (1985, 104).
There is also the older proverb "God fits the back to its burden" (1822).
God is good, but don't dance in a small boat (1995, 103).
There is also this somewhat unexpected proverb "God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts" (1978, 104) that appeared first as an advertisement and poster. It probably is meant against questionable sects and also brings to mind the proverb "There is no zealot like a convert" (1906, 285) with its reference to extreme behavior. This recalls the proverb "Even God gets tired of too much hallelujah" (1936, 102) whose first written reference appears in Carl Sandburg's epic poem The People, Yes (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936, p. 106) that is replete with American proverbs, proverbial expressions, and idioms [Mieder, 1973].
This brings this list of proverbs based on the idea that God can do everything to the African American proverb "God can make a way out of no way" (1922, 102) that might have had its start with the Biblical statement "I [God] will even make a way in the wilderness" (Isaiah 43:10) and of which similar allusions have been found among nineteenth-century Quakers [Doyle, 2014]. The earliest reference as a modern proverb appears in Coe Hayne's Race Grit (Philadelphia: Judson, 1922), p. 109: "God can make a way out of no way. Pray to him, and he will open a way." The proverb is also
current in a secular variant that I used for my book tile "Making a Way Out of No Way": Martin Luther King's Sermonic Proverbial Rhetoric (New York: Peter Lang, 2010). In its chapter entitled "'Making a Way Out of No Way': The Phraseological Way to Progress" (171-186) I discuss King's repeated use of the proverb both in its religious and secular variants. One of the most telling references appears in the last paragraph of a speech delivered on 16 August 1967 in which King looks with much hope to a better future. While the two quotational proverbs "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice" (Theodore Parker) and "Truth crushed to earth will rise again" (William Cullen Bryant) together with the Bible proverb "As you sow, so shall you reap" (Galatian 6:7) imply that morality, honesty, and diligence will be rewarded, it is also made clear that there is "a power [God] that is able to make a way out of no way" for the African American people:
When our days became dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights became darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of now way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long but it tends toward justice.
Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is right: "Truth crushed to earth will rise again." Let us go out realizing that the Bible is right: "Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall also reap." This is for hope for the future, and with this faith we will be able to sing in some not too distant tomorrow with a cosmic past tense, "We have overcome, we have overcome, deep in my heart, I did believe we would overcome" [Mieder, 2010, p. 186].
The proverb's encouraging message and orientation towards the future made it the perfect statement of King's religious and secular messages filled with faith, hope, and love for a world of peace and freedom [Dundes, 1969]. Against all odds and obstacles, Martin Luther King believed in and succeeded in "making a way out of no way" in words and deeds. There is no doubt that the proverb "God will make a way out of no way" epitomizes the entire civil and human rights movement in the United States and throughout the world, and as such it is the fitting verbal sign for unwavering hope and courageous action.
President Barack Obama, who has acknowledged the deep influence that Martin Luther King had upon his own worldview, also cites the proverb in his programmatic book The Audacity of Hope. Thought in Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006, p. 207).
I was drawn to the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change. Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person. Out of necessity, the black church rarely had the luxury of separating individual salvation from collective salvation. It had to serve as the center of the community's political, economic, and social as well as spiritual life; it understood in an intimate way the biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities. In the history of these struggles, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; rather, it was an active, palpable agent in the world. In the day-too-day work of the men and women I met in church each day, in their ability to "make a way out of no way" and maintain hope and dignity in the direst of circumstances, I could see the Word made manifest [Mieder, 2009, p. 237].
This statement, written in the spirit of Martin Luther King, can well illustrate that Barack Obama walks in the shoes of the great civil rights champion. A few pages before this paragraph, in his chapter on "Faith" (pp. 195-226), Obama observes that "It is a truism that we Americans are a religious people" (p. 198). It comes as no surprise then that this religiously informed worldview also comes to the fore in modern proverbs under discussion in the present deliberations. Here then are a few that express the humble dependency on God's designs together with a bit of pragmatism for good measure:
There are three sides to every question (argument): my side, your side, and God's side (the right side) (1903, 230).
Your arms are too short (not long enough) to box (fight, spar) with God (1912, 7). "Take what you want," says God, "and (but) pay for it" (1955, 105). To love another person is to see the face of God (1985, 196). Trust (in) God, but lock your door (your car) (1991, 105).
Very much to the point is the elliptical "Let go; let God" (1923, 105) that served as a title of a hymn by George Bennard (1873-1958): Let Go - Let God!
Let go, and let God have His way with thee, Delivered from sin, He would have thee be; "He's able to save the uttermost." Let go and be "filled with the Holy Ghost." Let go.
Let go, and let God have His way with thee,
0 struggle no more, hear Him say, "Be free;" Thine all gladly yield to His will divine,
Let go, and be filled with His love sublime. Let go.
Let go, and let God have His way with thee, What wonders in grace then thine eyes shall see; The Spirit's indwelling thy life shall crown, Let go, and the power will then come down. Let go.
Let go, and let God have His way with thee, "The pow'r to witness receive," saith He; The blessing of cleaning and perfect love, Will fit thee for service and heav'n above. Let go.
George Bennard (ed.), Full Redemption Songs. [Albion, Michigan: Bennard Music Co., 1966, p. 147]. This kind of sanctified religiosity is also expressed in the proverb "Only God can make a tree" (1913, 105) that entered oral tradition as a proverb from [Alfred] Joyce Kilmer's (1886-1918; killed towards the end of World War I) poem "Trees" (1913): Trees
1 think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in the hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.
[Joyce Kilmer, Trees and Other Poems. New York: George H. Doran, 1913, p. 4].
Speaking of trees, here is the modern American proverb "No tree grows to heaven (to the sky)" (1909, [Doyle, Mieder, 2020, p. 83-84] that is considered to be a bit of Wall Street wisdom. That is true, but the proverb had its origin in the German nineteenth-century proverb "Gott sorgt dafür, dass die Bäume nicht in den Himmel wachsen" (God takes care of it that trees don't grow to heaven) and its secular variant "Es ist dafür gesorgt, dass die Bäume nicht in den Himmel wachsen" (Care is taken that trees don't grow to heaven). Interestingly enough, there is an American reference from the late 1920s that mentions the German origin of the phrase, to wit A. Vere Shaw, 10 Rules for Investors (New York: Hugh Bancroft, 1929, p. 2): "According to the German proverb, however, 'no tree grows to heaven'." Winston Churchill was quite fond of the proverb, citing it twelve times in his voluminous writings [Mieder, Bryan, 1995, p. 52-54]. The basic message of the proverb is that nobody or nothing will grow to such a point that someone (God) will not eventually cut the person (thing) down. Thus, when Churchill speaks of the indiscriminate night bombing of British cities by the German Luftwaffe, he finds solace in the thought that this powerful aggression cannot continue forever in light of the fortitude and bravery of the British fighter pilots:
There is a useful German saying, "The trees do not grow up to the sky." Nevertheless we had every reason to expect that the air attack on Britain would continue in an indefinite crescendo. Until Hitler actually invaded Russia we had no right to suppose it would die away and stop. We therefore strove with might and main to improve the measures and devices by which we had hitherto survived and to find new ones [Winston Churchill, The Second World War: Vol. II, Their Finest Hour. London: Cassell, 1949, p. 146].
Even though Churchill helped to popularize the proverb in the English language, he never cited the "God"-variant. However, the proverb's reference to heaven or the sky helps to keep its oblique religious undertone alive, somewhat reminiscent of the Old Testament proverb "Pride goes before a fall" ((Proverbs 16:18). Interestingly, as a German native in the United States, I have on occasion cited the proverb in English as "God takes care of it that trees don't grow to heaven." Maybe it will catch on in this original wording in English yet and compete with its secular remnant "No tree grows to heaven."
There remain two more modern proverbs referring to God that need to be mentioned even though they were coined with ill-spirited intent. It must not be forgotten that terrible stereotypical proverbs exist, as for example the two horrific American proverbs "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" and "No tickee, no washee" from the nineteenth century [Mieder, 1997]. The proverb "Thank God for Mississippi" (1929) [Doyle, Mieder, 2016, p. 100-101] unfortunately continues to be used with the meaning that no matter how bad things might be (especially in the field of education), there is always at least one place (Mississippi) where the situation is much worse. Absolutely vicious is finally the proverb "Kill them all, and let God sort them out" (1932, 104105): "The proverb is the modern version of a Latin declaration attributed to the leader of the Albigensian Crusade of the early thirteenth century: 'Kill them all; God will know his own!' Numerous individuals recall the '. let God sort them out' version from the battlefields of Vietnam in the 1960s, and as a tattoo and T-shirt slogan in the 1970s" [Doyle, Mieder, Shapiro, 2012, p. 104]. I remember when Melissa Anne Russell contacted me with her fascinating manuscript on the history and unfortunate modern adaptation of this brutal and inhumane proverb that I included with two illustrations as "'Kill 'em All and Let God Sort 'em Out': The Proverb as an Expression of Verbal Aggression" in Proverbium, 16 (1999), 287-302. It is, after all, necessary that serious scholarship deals with the historical and psychological background of such menacing proverbs that should have no place in today's world.
Of course, the wartime proverb "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" (1942, 150) also refers to God as being on the American side after the unexpected naval attack on 7 December 1941 at Pearl Harbor. It has been attributed first to Chaplain William McGuire and subsequently to
Chaplain Howell Forgy. Later in 1942 Frank Loesser published a song with the proverb as its title and recurring line that was widely sung and spread the new somewhat aggressive proverb that can now be employed as a colloquial call to action without having weaponry in mind: Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition And we'll all be free Praise the Lord and swing into position Can't afford to be a politician Praise the Lord, we're all between perdition And the deep blue sea Yes the sky pilot said it Ya gotta give him credit For a sonofagun of a gunner was he Shouting Praise the Lord, we're on a mighty mission All aboard, we ain't a-goin' fishin' Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition And we'll all stay free
Praise the Lord (Praise the Lord) and pass the ammunition Praise the Lord (Praise the Lord) and pass the ammunition Praise the Lord (Praise the Lord) and pass the ammunition And we'll stay free
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition And we'll all be free
Wikipedia, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" (LyricFind)
The Pearl Harbor catastrophe clearly was met with prayer for those that perished and for those who fought for freedom. There are modern proverbs that deal with praying in a rather straightforward unemotional way. The proverb "Courage is fear that has said its prayers" (1922, 46) passed into oral tradition from a poem entitled "Courage" by Karle Wilson Baker, Burning Bush [New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1922, p. 69]: Courage
Courage is armor A blind man wears; The calloused scar Of outlived despairs: Courage is Fear That has said its prayers.
In any case, folk wisdom has come up with these three additional comments about prayers and praying that look at this activity in quite a realistic fashion. While it doesn't hurt to pray, it is obviously good to keep going somehow or the other since all things, both good and evil, will sooner or later come to an end:
When you pray, move your feet (1936, 84-85). When all fails, pray (try prayer) (1957, 73). The longest prayer has an "Amen" (1975, 206).
There is also the somewhat related proverb "Church is not out till they sing" (1966, 40).
After the Second World War with its social hardships another proverb appeared that epitomizes the emphasis on a healthy home life: "The family that prays together stays together" (1947, 74). It has remained popular ever since, although it is often cited humorously or ironically. By now it has also led to numerous anti-proverbs, as for example:
Families that pray together stay together, and families that work together - eat. (1980) If you go to the beach just remember that the family that bakes together aches together. (1980) The family that prays together stays together - thank God my mother-in-law's an atheist. (1981)
The family that kicks together sticks together! (1985)
Comes autumn, the family that rakes together aches together (1997).
The family that pulls taffy together sticks together (1997) [Litovkina, Mieder, 2006, p. 282-283]. Since the word "atheist" appears in one of these parodies of which there are many based on religious texts of all sorts [Monteiro, 1964, 1969], the fascinating proverb "There are no atheists in foxholes" (1942, 9-10) that originated during the Second World War enters this discussion. The brutality of the battles faced by soldiers on both sides and the horrific scenes of Allied soldiers landing on the Normandy beaches on the infamous D-Day (6 June 1944) naturally led to thoughts about what might have gone through their minds facing the possibility of a tragic death. Here is what we present in our Dictionary of Modern Proverbs about this text:
There are no atheists in foxholes. (1942, 9-10) Los Angeles Times 13 April, an "eye-witness" article by Col. Warren J. Clear: "When the attack was over, I turned to him and said, 'Sergeant, I noticed you were praying.' 'Yes, sir, I was.' There are no atheists in fox holes." There, the punctuation indicates that Col. Clear himself claims credit for the expression. However, an article of the same date in the New York Times attributes it, instead, to the sergeant: "They said he [Clear] and a sergeant, who shared the same fox-hole, prayed. . . . The sergeant, Lieut. Col. Clear related, observed afterward that 'There are no atheists in fox-holes.'" An account by Clear published in the Reader'sDigest (July 1942) 2 likewise assigns the words to the sergeant: "When the attack was over I said: 'Sergeant, I noticed you were praying.' 'Yes, sir,' he answered, without batting an eye, 'there are no atheists in foxholes.'" During 1942, 1943, and 1944, the saying was frequently quoted with a specific reference to Col. Clear or his sergeant. Subsequently, however, it has been more commonly attributed to a military chaplain; according to Carlos Romulo, I Saw the Fall of the Philippines (Garden City NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1943) 263: "Then I saw Father William Thomas Cummings standing on a chair over this scene of bedlam and death. . . . It was he who had said in one of his field sermons on Bataan: 'There are no atheists in the fox holes.'" Perhaps Father Cummings garnered the saying from one of the aforementioned articles or from Col. Clear himself. Already in 1943 it was being referred to as an "adage"-for instance, in Ernie Pyle's Here's Your War (New York: H. Holt) 287, where no specific attribution appears. With variant wording, the germ of the proverb is older than World War II. 1917 Olean [NY] Evening Herald 22 Dec.: "There are no atheists over there when those big shells come over their heads." 1918 Oakland Tribune 6 May: "There are no atheists in trenches." The proverb may even owe something to the very old Christian commonplace (which has different implications) that there are no atheists in hell [Doyle, Mieder, Shapiro, 2012, p. 9-10].
Many a soldier will have turned to faith in order to get through the war, remembering the proverb "Faith can move (moves) mountains" (1879) that is an allusion to Matthew 17:20: "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain; Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove" and 1 Corinthian 13:2: "I have all faith; so that I could remove mountains." Due to its popularity, the proverb has resulted in anti-proverbs parodying its message:
"Faith either moves mountains or tunnels through" (1980), "Faith can move mountains - but it never does" (1990), "Faith can move mountains but not furniture" (2004), etc. [Litovkina, Mieder, 2006, p. 146]. Such texts have not become new proverbs in their own right, but "Patience can move (moves) mountains" (1930, 192) has been registered as a modern American proverb originating as a comment from teachers to students. Related to this is also the proverb "Respect faith (knowledge), but doubt is what gives you an education" (1935, 73). In any case, where there is faith, there is hope, perhaps even for divine miracles: "Miracles take (a lot of) hard work" (1946, 167). Keeping the faith (Colston 1994, Dancy and Wynn-Dancy 1994) and a good dose of American pragmatism and not cynicism might help along with the miracle of moving mountains!
The phenomenon of anti-proverbs has been mentioned a couple of times, and since this discussion of modern religious proverbs began with Bible proverbs, it is appropriate to finish with two proverbs from the New Testament that have been changed into expressions of modern mundane wisdom. There is first of all the proverb "Love your neighbor as yourself' (Galatian 5:14) that Martin Luther King cited repeatedly in its religious and secular meaning, as for example in his speech of 28 February 1960:
This is my faith. And I choose to go on through my days with this faith. I tell you if you catch it, you will be able to rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. Love yourself; you are commanded to do that. That is the length of life. Love your neighbor as you love yourself; you are commanded to do that. That is the breadth of life. But never forget that there is a first and even greater commandment: Love thy Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. That is the height of life. And when you do this, you'll live the complete life [Mieder, 2010, p. 440].
As one would expect, numerous anti-proverbs sprang up over time, of which the following texts might serve as examples:
Love thy neighbor, but don't remove the fence (1967).
Love thy neighbor, but do not make love to her (1968).
Love thy neighbor, but make sure her husband is away (1976).
"Love thy neighbor," but first be sure she isn't married! (1980)
Love thy neighbor - but make sure his wife doesn't find out (1985).
Love your neighbor as yourself - but no more (1993).
"Love thy neighbor," as the parson said to the man who lived next door to the pigsty (1994)
[Litovkina, Mieder, 2006, p. 209].
As can be seen, sexual implications play a role in such parodies, and it needs to be said that the Dictionary of Modern Proverbs includes numerous proverbs dealing with sexuality and scatology - a sign that such taboo topics have become much more acceptable in folk speech in the modern age [Mieder, 2020b, p. 215-244]. While none of the cited anti-proverbs have gained any currency, "Love thy neighbor, but don't get caught" (1967, 177) has been disseminated widely and has attained a genuine proverbial status - quite different from Jesus' message and the deeply felt use of the original Bible proverb by Martin Luther King.
The final Bible proverb to discuss if the so-called golden rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (Matthew 7:12) As elsewhere in the world - the proverb is known in all major religions - it has played a major role in the sociopolitical discourse during four centuries of American history. In my very recent article "'Do Unto Others as You Would Have them Do Unto You': The Golden Rule as an Emotional Appeal for Humanity in American History" (2020a) I have cited contextualized references from such major figures as Abigail and John Adams, Theodore Parker, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman, Martin Luther King, John Lewis, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and others (see [Chlebda, 1998; Carter, 2017] for proverbs in Russian politics). Taking the place of all
precursory "golden rule" statements by these social reformers. politicians, and presidents, here is what President Barack Obama said on 4 June 2009 at Cairo University to thousands of Arabic students. As he asked them "to reimagine the world, to remake this world," there were repeated applause and calls of the type "Barack Obama, we love you!" during the speech. The climax of the speech was reached when the President called for a new world of brother- and sisterhood informed by empathy and mutual respect, with the center of his powerful statement being occupied by the proverbial golden rule:
All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort - a sustained effort - to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.
It's easier to start wars than to end them. It's easier to blame others than to look inward. It's easier to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There's one rule that lies at the heart of every religion - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. (Applause.) This truth transcends nations and peoples - a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the hearts of billions around the world. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today (Obama: www.obamaspeeches.com).
That is rational and emotional rhetoric, coming both from the mind and the heart, as it calls for a new world order based on ethical values that bind humankind together. One certainly can hear echoes of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King in this deeply moral worldview.
And yet, there is a counterpoint to the often - perhaps too often - repeated golden rule. As has already been mentioned, any statement, be it ever so serious, will lead to parodies that put its underlying message into humorous, ironical, or satirical question. In fact, Charles Dickens wrote in 1844 "Here's the rule for bargains. 'Do other men, for they would do you'" [Bryan, Mieder, 1997, p. 107], and George Bernard Shaw quipped in 1905: "Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same" [Bryan, Mieder, 1994, p. 106]. And here are a few more modern examples of such popular witticisms:
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you - except do it to them first (1961).
Do not do unto others what they will not do for themselves (1968).
Do unto others - and then cut out (1971).
Do unto others before they undo you (1972).
Do unto others and do it fast (1997) [Monteiro, 1969, p. 62; Litovkina, Mieder, 2006, p. 123-124].
But of special interest is the anti-proverb "Do unto others before they (can) do unto you" (1915, 57) that has been registered in the Dictionary of American Proverbs as a new proverb in its own right with its earliest recorded reference being from 29 October 1915 in the Indianapolis Star newspaper: "The Golden Rule in war seems to be, Do unto others before they can do it unto you" [Doyle, Mieder, Shapiro, 2012, p. 67]. From a soldier's perspective during the First World War this new proverb probably makes sense, but in its general use the humane message of the golden rule is lost as it expresses instead a rather self-centered and aggressive modus operandi in a highly competitive world.
Conclusion
To a certain degree this worldview is also expressed in the modern religiously informed modern proverbs that tend to stress worldly mores that are informed by a secular pragmatism. And yet, some of them contain solid wisdom and express their insights in meaningful imperatives. They reflect modernity and show that either God or the devil are in the details as life's journeys move forward without forgetting that the most meaningful law of life for the interconnected modern world is the proverbial sociopolitical imperative expressed in the golden rule.
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Мидер В.
Доктор филологических наук, профессор, факультет немецкого и русского языков, Вермонтский университет, США
«БОГ И ДЪЯВОЛ В ДЕТАЛЯХ»: СЕКУЛЯРИЗОВАННАЯ РЕЛИГИЯ В СОВРЕМЕННЫЕ АНГЛО-АМЕРИКАНСКИХ ПОСЛОВИЦАХ
Многие библейские притчи, как из Ветхого, так и из Нового Завета, актуальны и сегодня, но люди не всегда помнят об их происхождении. Есть много старых народных пословиц, в которых упоминается Бог, дьявол, вера, молитвы и другие религиозные вопросы. Наиболее известная из этих пословиц - «Бог помогает тем, кто помогает себе сам». Помня
о том, что современная жизнь стала более секуляризованной, интересно рассмотреть современные англо-американские пословицы, которые касаются этой темы. Самыми известными, несомненно, являются «Бог в деталях» и его вариант «Дьявол в деталях». Многие из почти шестидесяти пословиц, представленных в данной работе, относятся к Богу как к довольно прагматичной силе, которая помогает справляться с повседневными трудностями, например: «Бог может найти выход из любой ситуации». Народная мудрость также создала пословицы, в которых говорится о молитвах и молящихся; в них это занятие рассматривается довольно реалистично, например: «Когда молишься, двигай ногами». В данных пословицах нет святости, но некоторые содержат поучения, а также призывы к смирению, как это видно из следующих пословиц: «Надейся на Бога, но дверь свою запри», «В окопах нет атеистов». Конечно, есть и пародийные антипословицы, такие как «Люби ближнего своего, но не попадись», которые распространились в виде провербиальных выражений в обществе с небольшим количеством запретов. В целом современные религиозные пословицы подчеркивают мирские нравы, они склонны к светскому прагматизму, содержат твердую мудрость и выражают свое мировоззрение в значимых императивах. Они отражают современность и показывают, что либо Бог, либо дьявол кроются в деталях, поскольку жизнь продолжается.
Ключевые слова: англо-американец, антипословица, Библия, дьявол, дидактика, вера, Бог, современность, молитва, пословица, религия, мировоззрение.
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