POLITICIANS AND PREACHERS AND CHEESECLOTH

Many of my growing up years were spent on my maternal grandparents’ primitive Missouri farm, and I’m thankful for the unique memories I have in this connection. One of these is the daily illustration I had of the truth that, just as the cream always rises to the top, so does the crud.

During the old-fashioned milking process, no matter how much you didn’t want it to happen or wanted to prevent it, some crud inevitably got into the milk bucket. My grandmother daily set aside what she wanted of the fresh milk for kitchen use in a big bowl (or, “vessel” as she called it), and waited for the cream to rise and settle at the top.  Then she’d strain the cream through a piece of cheesecloth into a big earthenware bowl. As the cream went through the cheesecloth, any bit of crud would be caught in it. The cream was then put into the refrigerator, and the crud was thrown out.

No self-respecting, responsible farmwoman was indifferent to the possibility and probability of crud having found its way into her cream. I can’t help but think about this in terms of our current situation relative to men who are in places of power politically, and preachers who are in pulpits, who need to be separated from these positions. Self-respecting and responsible citizens and Christians will want and take action to see that this happens.

To be clear, not everything, other than milk, that found its way into my grandpa’s milk bucket was, by definition, “crud” in the sense of being something dirty and disgusting. Sometimes something otherwise clean and harmless simply gets somewhere where it doesn’t belong. So it is with men who have no business being in the milk buckets of our politics and pulpits. Politicians need to be strained through the “cheesecloth” of the Constitution and preachers need to be strained through the “cheesecloth” of the Bible to make sure they don’t get in or stay where they shouldn’t be.

“If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom,” said Abraham Lincoln, “ give him power.” Oftentimes, as with a bucket of milk, we don’t discover what a man is, either good or bad until he has risen to the top in terms of political power or a place in a pulpit.