Soul Survivor

I have been reading thins book Soul Survivor by Philip Yancey. Actually I picked it up last summer but have just gotten around to sitting down and reading it. Basically he talks about 13 people that have impacted his life. Today I was reading the chapter on Robert Coles someone who I had never heard of but am glad I have been introduced to. Coles a Harvard graduate and professor of literature, spent time in the 60's doing psychological studies with children. Here are a couple of thoughts that came out of this chapter. Insights that he learned from the poor and underpriveldged.

"You see, my child, you have to help the good Lord with His world! He puts us here- and He calls us to help Him out..."

This from a grandmother of one of the first girls to be sent to desegregate the schools. He found the moral developement of these underpriveledged people to be on the same par as Jesus and Gandhi. When it came to living out their faith these "culturally deprived" families passed the test. Unlike others who, "got all A's and flunked ordinary living."

"Being pivileged, Coles concluded, tend to stifle compassion, curtail community, and feed ambition." Coles also states, "It was true the poor were cursed... Yet in a strange undeniable way the poor were also blessed, for whatever reason, with qualities such as courage and love and a willing dependence on God. The irony: Good humanists work all their lives to improve the condition of the disadvantaged, but for what? to raise them to the level of the upper classes so that they too can experience boerdom, alienation, and decadence?"

These are very profound words. I'm taking my time with this book because it seems like every chapter tells of someone very interesting that if I don't already know about I really should and I am enjoying being impacted by their words passed on to me through Philip Yancey.