Cross Creek and a Camel Going Through the Eye of a Needle

I just love to read books about old Florida. I was born and raised here, as were my parents. Their parents are both from Georgia farms. On my mothers side her relatives were plantation owners at one time.  I love to read about the past and because I am a romantic, I always like to believe things were better, once upon a time. The above pictured house is Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings house here in Florida. I love her book Cross Creek, although she is best known for The Yearling. This book is about her adventures here in Old Florida, at a time when things were much simpler.  If you ever get a chance to read it, do. She was an interesting soul. I would like to share with you her thoughts, (which may not be right but I found them thought provoking none the less) on rich people getting into heaven. Here goes:

I have my own explanation of the cynical Biblical statement that it is as easy for a rich man to enter Heaven as for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. On the surface, the statement is unjust, for wealth is so accidental a thing, that either its possession or its lack should not be held against any man. Sift each of us through the great sieve of circumstance and you have a residue, great or small as the case may be that is the man or the woman. The rich, the well favored, the well situated, are surrounded with a confusing protective mass of  extraneous and irrelevant matter that tends to hide the substance beneath. The poor, the unfortunate, have been put through the sieve and stand nakedly for who they are. A poor and simple man stands with bare outstretched hands at the gates of Heaven, and his essential character is written in broad letters across him, for life has stripped him down to it. Confronted with the fortunate but cluttered man, St. Peter must do  a neat problem in psychiatry and estimate, "Now what would this man's honor be if he were starving? He gives much, having a surfiet. What would he give if he had nothing?" Being busy with the checking of admissions to Heaven, it is conceivable that St. Peter is obliged to tell the rich man that he must wait in the anteroom until he can go deeper into his case.

Blessing to you,

Amy Jo