Recently I completed another reading of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.

What follows below are several items: 1) quotes from the book; 2) some ideas about Hemingway’s atheism; 3) some questions to ponder; 4) why my views of the novel changed.

As a brief prolegomenon and as a matter of disclosure, I value Hemingway’s writing–especially his short stories–immensely. His place in the canon of classics of American and world literature is not in doubt. The fact that thousands of us still read his works is proof. So what follows is not a Hemingway-bashing screed.

I hope that it is rather a thoughtful response and series of questions for careful readers to ponder as we continue to read and study Hemingway’s works and his worldview.

Here are a few quotes from the book that moved me, told from a soldier’s perspective, amidst war:

Two Quotes from the Novel:

“If this was how it was then this was how it was. But there was no law that made him say he liked it. I did not know that I could ever feel what I have felt, he thought. Nor that this could happen to me. I would like to have it for my whole life. You will, the other part of him said. You will. You have it now and that is all your whole life is; now. There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span” (169).

And then this quote. It is, like the one above, from a soldier’s perspective, an internal stream-of-consciousness interior monologue, and it reflects a worldview:

“I think that we are born into a time of great difficulty, he thought. I think any other time was probably easier. One suffers little because all of us have been formed to resist suffering. They who suffer are unsuited to this climate. But it is a time of difficult decisions. The fascists attacked and made our decision for us. We fight to live. But I would like to have it so that I could tie a handkerchief to that bush back there and come in the daylight and take the eggs and put them under a hen and be able to see the chicks of the partridge in my own courtyard. I would like such small and regular things.

‘But you have no house and no courtyard in your no-house, he thought. You have no family but a brother who goes to battle tomorrow and you own nothing but the wind and the sun and an empty belly. The wind is small, he thought, and there is no sun. You have four grenades in your pocket but they are only good to throw away. You have a carbine on your back but it is only good to give away bullets. You have a message to give away. And you’re full of crap that you can give to the earth, he grinned in the dark. You can anoint it also with urine. Everything you have is to give. Thou art a phenomenon of philosophy and an unfortunate man, he told himself and grinned again” (368).

Thoughts on Hemingway’s Atheism:

It should be evident from both quotes that Hemingway’s characters in the novel embody a naturalistic worldview. There is no God; there is only material and chance. Man came from nowhere; there is no divine overarching purpose to the cosmos, much less to individual lives, except what one arbitrarily manufactures. No heaven, no hell. Just blood and soil, as it were. Lots and lots of blood, blood-soaked soil, and war.

But what strikes me each time I read this novel is that Robert Jordan, the protagonist, loves. He loves his fellow soldiers (like Anselmo, for example) and he loves Maria, the Spanish girl. He also loves concepts like honor and sacrifice.

Some Questions to Ponder:

Is that not interesting? Why would a person with an atheistic/naturalistic worldview love people, love his fellow soldiers, love a woman, or love ideas like honor and sacrifice? How can one logically account for these things in an atheistic/naturalistic worldview?

But what we find in this novel, and in all of Hemingway’s other masterful works, is that his characters do love. They do value sacrifice. They do value honor. They do believe in right and wrong, good and evil.

Why My Views Have Changed:

When I read this novel now, I see its contradictions, and those contradictions lessen my appreciation for the atheistic position.

The writing (please hear me) is wonderful. But the logical inconsistencies are replete.

Robert Jordan is in many ways, one might reasonably say, a “good” man. (“Why do you call me good?” should be ringing in your bibical ears, if you know the Scriptures.) He is at war voluntarily to combat what he views as evil.

He loves his battle buddies.

He loves a woman.

He loves life and hates meaningless violence while also recognizing that violence is necessary at times to destroy evil’s advances.

But all of these concepts about good and evil, love and hate, right and wrong, purpose versus accident, chance versus providence–they all only make sense if there’s a personal, transcendent, objective reference point, i.e., God.

I was flying in uniform today. When I went through pre-check and walked out to my gate, a man spoke to me kindly.

“Thank you for your service,” he said.

“Thank you, sir.”

Moments later we were all boarded. The plane was full. Packed. The man at the Delta kiosk offered checked-in passengers $1,200 to take a flight twelve hours later.

When I boarded, I strained to fit my backpack into the overhead bin. This plane appeared smaller than the ones I normally fly. And the bins seemed smaller, too.

Finally I squeezed my black backpack into the overhead bin, grabbed my bottle of water and the novel I was completing, and took my seat.

I was seated near the rear in a window seat. I was speaking with a kind woman next to me who was flying with her two young daughters. The girls were clearly excited to fly but their mom was less spirited. I tried to cheer her up and make small talk while her girls took their seats across the narrow aisle.

Then the man who had earlier thanked me for my service stood up from his seat in first class. He pointed at me. He waved me forward, mouthing, “This seat’s for you,” and told me to come to his seat.

He came and took my little window seat in the back and insisted I take his large seat in first class. He would not accept my refusal. And I did not wish to cause a scene.

Because of him, I flew first class across the country.

When we arrived several hours later, I stayed on the plane until he exited. “Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it,” I said. I asked him if he was prior service.

“I’m not,” he said, “but my dad is a Marine. He died last year. But there are no former Marines,” he said.

“Yes, sir, I know,” I said and laughed. “Thank you, again.”

Despite the self-absorption and selfishness that tend to characterize most current things, kindness (often in quiet ways) abides.

I salute you, sir, and your dad, the Marine, for raising a generous and kind man.

The Ruby-crowned kinglet …

I love to watch the birds feed. And I wonder often how they go through so much birdseed.

But I think I’m on the trail … and it leads to whitetails.

Doh!

S6. That was the designated area where my shuttle driver would pick us up to drive us back to our vehicles parked in a distant parking lot. As I exited the baggage claim area and crossed the street to the pickup area for shuttles, I could see a woman dancing and snapping her fingers and mouthing some words. She was smiling, too, as I approached. It would have been difficult to be in a bad mood around this woman, her spirit was just that way.

“I want some of the coffee you drink, “I said, as I approached the pickup area, close enough to her I thought she’d be able to hear, even with all the noise from airplanes and vehicles in the pickup/dropoff area.

“The joy of the LORD is my strength,” she said.

“Well, amen,” I said, not knowing how exactly to respond.

“How you doin’ this mornin’, hon?” she said, still smiling, and swaying as if from music only she could hear.

“Doing well. Have I found the right place–the shuttle pickup to go to my vehicle back out at B21?” I responded.

“You got it, hon. I’ll take care of you. Just put your bag inside and lay it on its side so it doesn’t roll, okay, sugar?”

“Yes, ma’am. Will do.”

I was the only patron on the shuttle, when I did as she said and took a seat. I took my rolling bag and placed it as directed and then took my backpack off and put it on the seat beside me.

“Looks like you’re it, honey. But don’t you worry. I’ll take care of you.”

“Sounds great,” I said. “This is very convenient. I’m glad to have met you today,” I said.

“Honey, I’m beyond sixty years old, been driving big rigs for a career, am now retired, and I just do this here job because I love driving and I love meeting folks, and I can take care of my grandbaby,” she said.

“Well, that sounds nice. You live in the city?”

“Decatur. Just sixteen miles from here. I started driving part-time, but now I get all the hours I want. I treat folks right. I’m a recovering addict, but the Holy Spirit got a’hold of me and convicted me of my ways a long time ago, honey. Now I’m filled with the Spirit. No more drugs for me, baby, but the joy of the LORD is my strength!”

She spoke so quickly that I could not even tell when she inhaled and exhaled. She flowed with words and energy.

I let the conversation hang for a minute or two, unsure whether I could match her energy level. I’d been up since three a.m. and flown across the country. Were it not for the caffeine in my system, I could have easily dozed off, at least on the plane. But not now. She was different.

Very soon we were in the parking lot where I had parked serveral days prior.

“Honey, what type’s a car you got?”

I told her and she spotted it right away in the lane.

I took some cash from my wallet and placed it in the cup she had on her dashboard, where it bulged with singles, fives, and ten-dollar bills.

“May I share something with you?” I asked, as I put on my backpack and retrieved my rolling bag.

“Of course, hon. What you got?”

“I’m a military chaplain. And I just love hearing stories like yours. Thank you for telling me your story,” I said.

“We were supposed to meet today, hon. That’s the Lord at work, you see,” she said.

I put the cash in her white cup on the dashboard and waved to her.

“I’ll see you,” I said.

“You drive careful, hon,” she said, and honked the horn on the empty shuttle.

She was singing to herself again and smiling. And she pulled off to see who else the Lord would put in her path.

Descending into thick clouds this morning from 30,000 feet and enjoying the views.

Background: When a college kid, I remember taking a handful of yellow Vivarin caffeine pills on a rainy Thursday and staying up for two-and-a-half days on a brown cloth sofa with collapsed cushions and reading The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, McCullers’ breakthrough enduring heartrending novel. I read it as an eighteen-year-old and have reread it since then, along with her other works.

McCullers has a gift for characterization. If you are a caring reader, you come to care deeply for her characters. You know of John Singer and Mick, e.g. in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. They live in your thinking, in your imagination, in your heart. They are in fact quite real to you, even though you know that they don’t have a SSN or driver’s license.

If you’re of a literary bent, this will be self-evident. Twain’s Huck and Jim are as real to you–perhaps more real–than any so-called news of the day. (If you trust TV entertainers/pontiffs, this explains a lot.) Hamlet is as real to me as anyone. Why? Because, among other things, he (and the play bearing his name) speaks to the human condition, to what we creatures are like, to what it means to draw breath and to live, laugh, grow up, grow old (at least sometimes), and to grow towards our ends, to decline.

Recently I was in Pennsylvania and read my some of my favorite short stories, one of which was McCullers’ “The Sojourner.” In the edition of short stories I was reading from, “The Sojourner” was one of Elbert Erskine’s (the famous editor) favorites, too. He, of course, worked with and edited the writing of Faulkner, John O’Hara, Cormac McCarthy, Carson McCullers, among others. Those names merit taking heed.

A line that grabbed me: The story is about what it means to journey–to sojourn–in imagination when one’s ‘reality’ is sadly much less than one’s ambitious inner promptings/imagined life. Another way of expressing the idea is to say that one’s outer visible life is often sadly less than the life one imagined for oneself.

I was reading from one of my shelves of collections of short stories.

Then this line: “There’s nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book” (Carson McCullers, “The Sojourner,” New York: Dell Publishing, 1982), 329-330.

The main character, John Ferris, continues to journey, to sojourn, to live (where exactly?). That’s the key question.

McCullers, when she is on point, tears your heart out.

I love to travel. And in my position, I travel a great deal. My most recent trip was to Pennsylvania. Due to an unforeseen change, I had to rent a car at the airport in Harrisburg, PA. No problem, I thought, I’ve rented scores of times. (See where this is going?)

So my drive to Atlanta’s airport early in the morning had been uneventful, the way one wants it. And I had the friendliest shuttle driver in ATL, who dropped me and the other travelers at the South Terminal. I knew early on this was going to be a good trip. I mean, if you can get through ATL traffic, and (even though I had to park in the Park ATL PARK-RIDE, I was okay with that, because the shuttles seemed to be running smoothly. So again, I thought, no problem. This was going to be a good trip.

The flight was on time, too. So as I sat in the terminal and sipped my coffee and texted my wife that all was going well, I ate a snack she had packed me, and read more of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, and glanced up occasionally to people-watch others in the airport. (If you ever want to see more of human variety than nearly any other place, an airport is your place.)

Anyway, the plane pulled up, and I watched the crews through the window do their routine checks and services. I’d only read twenty pages or so before it was time to board. Again, no issues. We boarded on time, took off on time, and the morning was clear, and I had a window seat. So I looked out to see the mountains of north GA come into view just a few minutes after we were airborne.

I read some more of the novel on the flight, and in less than two hours we were safely on the ground in Pennsylvania. I grabbed my gear and walked across the way to the rental car kiosks. And then things changed.

I walked up to the Budget counter.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. I would like to rent a compact car.”

“Name!”

I told her my name.

“I don’t see your reservation,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am, I know. I don’t have one. I need to rent one, please, a vehicle.”

“We don’t have any vehicles,” she said, about as concerned as a jar of mayonnaise.

“Um … okay.”

She never looked up from her keyboard; she acted like she wanted me to burst into flames and burn in front of her.

I looked down at the Avis counter. No one was in line, so I thought maybe I’d have better luck there.

A young woman was smacking gum and sitting alone scrolling on her smartphone behind the counter.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. I’d like to rent a vehicle, please. I don’t have a reservation, though.”

“We are out of vehicles,” she said, and popped a bubble inside her gums. “There’s a conference in town.”

A man in front of me in the Hertz line, only separated by a red rope chain like one sees in movie theaters, overheard our conversation. He looked at me and said, “They told me the same thing and I went online and made a reservation just now. I have a car,” he said. He rolled his eyes and smiled, as if he understood my exasperation.

So I walked over to the chairs alongside the wall, pulled out my phone, logged onto the Budget site, reserved the cheapest vehicle I could find, received a confirmation number by email with my pickup time (about three minutes later).

I walked back over to Luciferette, I mean, the girl at the Budget counter, and said, “I’d like to pick up my reserved vehicle, please.”

“Name!”

I gave her my name.

“I don’t see your name.”

“Would you like this confirmation number? Would that help?” I asked.

“Yes,” she returned, not looking up.

I read it to her.

“License and credit card,” she said.

It took all of about two minutes. I initialed and signed and she, mumbling while looking down at her keyboard, said, “A 19. Out the door to your left. Bring it back full or you are charged $11.39 a gallon.”

I walked out and had never been so glad to see a rental vehicle.

The morning had begun so well. The flight had been good. The views of my beloved mountains were perfect. But Luciferette had told me that Budget had no vehicles. Then I reserved one online and had one within three minutes.

I could feel my heart racing under my black Columbia wind parka. And the girl smacking the bubble gum at Avis had given me the same spiel. But here I was, walking out to get in the rental car.

So I placed my bag in the truck’s bed, and put my hotel coordinates in my iPhone and drove the hour or so to the hotel where I was staying for this trip. When I pulled into the hotel parking lot, I was still mad about the Budget minion. I almost dreaded seeing what experience awaited me at the desk when I checked in at the hotel. But it had to be done.

I walked up to the counter. “Good afternoon,” I said, and gave the young man my name and military identification card and my credit card.

“Here you go, sir. Here’s your ID back, and your credit card and room keys. Here’s the WiFi code. The easiest way to access your room is by walking just down this hall, and the elevators will be on the right. Once you exit the elevator, your room will be down the hall to your right. What else may I help you with, sir?”

I almost collapsed on the floor in front of him. For a second, I was speechless. Was I on the same planet as I was when at the Budget desk in Harrisburg, PA?

I looked at the young man’s nametag. Cole, it said.

(Cole, you’ve no idea how you have encouraged me today. No idea.)

Somehow I did not collapse in front of Cole at the hotel’s front desk. “Thanks, brother. Much appreciated.”

I walked up to my room, pulled out my uniform to change and get prepared to go see soldiers soon.

The story is probably an old and familiar one. Folks are a mixed bag. Some lie to you and never bat an eye. They might even tell you they’ve no vehicles available to rent. Still others might smack bubble gum behind the counter and pop bubbles inside their mouths and tell you they’ve no vehicles available to rent.

But then you might also meet a nice man who tells you how he went online a moment before, and PRESTO!, vehicles appeared like manna from heaven, ready to be rented.

Or you might walk into your hotel, and meet a nice young man with the name of Cole, who seems to care, who does his job well, who is, well, just kind. And you might feel your pulse slow, and your breathing slow, and you might think, and say silently to yourself, It’s okay, old boy. Remember: a mixed bag. Pick the good ones.