Everyone knows Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat and the Hat. My favorite Dr. Seuss stories are a little less known. On the birthday of Dr. Seuss, lots of folks are celebrating his work, and I was blessed to read my very favorite Dr. Seuss story to several classes of elementary schoolkids. I've had the chance to re-read several stories and think about how profound and beautiful their messages are. Here are a few that might help our country if everyone sat down together to hear them like schoolkids.
My favorite of all time is the Sneetches. Some of the Sneetches have stars on their bellies and others don't. The Star-Bellied Sneetches feel superior to the non-Star Bellied Sneetches. They exclude them from frankfurter roasts on the beach and won't let their children play together. A man named Sylvester McMonkey McBean shows up with a machine that puts stars on the excluded Sneetches. The Star-Bellied Sneetches are aghast that they no longer have a mark of superiority. Sylvester McMonkey McBean has another machine that takes the stars off. Each time Sneetches run through the machines, the price goes up, and everyone gets more confused and broke. When all the money is gone, McBean leaves town laughing at the foolishness of the Sneetches and how impossible it is for them to learn.
The Sneetches are us, of course. We have all kinds of ways that we label each other and group ourselves against each other. Tremendous energy is wasted and tremendous harm is caused, and the Sylvester McMonkey McBeans of the world figure out how to take advantage of the stupidity. The book was published in 1953 and surely was about the struggle for racial equality. In my own denomination, and often think that the very minute differences between the approach of "liberal" (there are no real liberals in Methodism in our area) and "conservatives" (there aren't many of the kind that I grew up with, either), grouping up according to what school we went to, and the new and very stupid distinction between "institutional" and "missional" as so much Star and not Star-Bellied Sneetching. I certainly think much of this grouping is driven by the Sylvester McMonkey McBeans of the world who use division as a means to get elected (to Congress, or General Conference, or whatever), to get Twitter followers, to get ratings, to get into fights about nothing. McBean says we Sneetches never learn. After Annual Conference, I always think he's right. Maybe not. There's always the Gospel, which Paul says gives us a new identity in Christ, who loves every person on the face of the earth enough to die for each one.
My other favorite is the Zax. The north-going Zax only goes north, the south-going Zax only goes south, and when come face-to-face neither can step out of the way to let the other one pass. They are stuck. When a highway is built through the area, it has to be built over them. when a city grows, it grows around them. The world moves on, but there they are, toe-to-toe and eyeball to eyeball. Consistent Conservative to Progressive, as stuck as Congress, like a conversation between Rachel Maddow and Bill O'Reilly. Thank God the world goes on without them. How often does the Bible teach us how to prefer each other, hear each other, and give way to another?
Of course, there's Yertle the Turtle, king of all he sees, who climbs over more and more turtles to see more and more because he is "king of all that he sees." Eventually the stack falls and Yertle is king of the mud. Anyone who understand the difference between the kind of King we serve and the kings of this world will see the Gospel clearly the message of Yertle.
Dr. Seuss never had explicitly religious themes. He was a Lutheran, though many thought he was Jewish and he experienced mis-directed anti-Semitism. When I was a child, his messages were seen as well-told moral and character building tales. Now, lots of people see them as liberal, which, to me, shows how much good conservativism has been co-opted by an ugly and unprincipled heartlessness and mindlessness.
Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss. Your words are good medicine for our time and for our souls. It's time to read your wonderful lines with new and knowing eyes.
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