People Help the People by Birdy
Reflection
Only God knows what’s contained in those weak and drunken hearts.
-Fyodor Dostoevsky
The opening line of People Help the People is a paraphrase of something in Dostoevky’s The Idiot. In the scene the quote comes from, Prince Myshkin is telling a companion a of a time he took a morning walk through the city and crossed paths with a drunk soldier. The soldier approached him, petitioning Myshkin to buy the silver crucifix around his neck. Myshkin recognized that the cross isn’t silver, but tin. And yet, he fished out the fourpence the man demanded and exchanged it for the cross. Myshkin recounts how he watched the man walk away to “drink the value of his cross” and then, shockingly, withholds judgment by saying, “So there I was, and I thought: no, I won’t be too quick to condemn that Christ-seller. After all, only God knows what’s contained in those weak and drunken hearts.”
Oh, and if I had a brain, oh, and if I had a brain
I'd be cold as a stone and rich as the fool
That turned all those good hearts away
I confess that I all too quickly judge hearts I have no ability to peer into. It makes me wonder how was Prince Myshkin able to withhold such judgement? Perhaps, it has something to do with his understanding of God. We get a glimpse of his theology in the very next paragraph. It’s too not to good to share, so humor me by letting me quote it in its entirety:
Well, I went homewards, and near the hotel I came across a poor woman, carrying a child—a baby of some six weeks old. The mother was quite a girl herself. The baby was smiling up at her, for the first time in its life, just at that moment; and while I watched the woman she suddenly crossed herself, oh, so devoutly! 'What is it, my good woman I asked her. (I was never but asking questions then!) Exactly as is a mother's joy when her baby smiles for the first time into her eyes, so is God's joy when one of His children turns and prays to Him for the first time, with all his heart!' This is what that poor woman said to me, almost word for word; and such a deep, refined, truly religious thought it was—a thought in which the whole essence of Christianity was expressed in one flash—that is, the recognition of God as our Father, and of God's joy in men as His own children, which is the chief idea of Christ. She was a simple country-woman—a mother, it's true—and perhaps, who knows, she may have been the wife of the drunken soldier!
If we could find joy in others, even if they’ve sold their tin cross for another drink, as God find joy in His own children, I think we’d turn away less good hearts. And it might just be a profound way to help people.
Links
Lyrics
God knows what is hiding in those weak and drunken hearts
Guess he kissed the girls and made them cry
Those hard-faced queens of misadventure
God knows what is hiding in those weak and sunken eyes
Fiery throngs of muted angels
Giving love but getting nothing back, oh
People help the people
And if you're homesick, give me your hand and I'll hold it
People help the people
Nothing will drag you down
Oh, and if I had a brain, oh, and if I had a brain
I'd be cold as a stone and rich as the fool
That turned all those good hearts away
God knows what is hiding in this world of little consequence
Behind the tears, inside the lies
A thousand slowly dying sunsets
God knows what is hiding in those weak and drunken hearts
Guess the loneliness came knocking
No one needs to be alone or sinking
People help the people
And if you're homesick, give me your hand and I'll hold it
People help the people
Nothing will drag you down
Oh, and if I had a brain, oh, and if I had a brain
I'd be cold as a stone and rich as the fool
That turned, all those good hearts away
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, ooh
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, ooh
People help the people
And if you're homesick, give me your hand and I'll hold it
People help the people
Nothing will drag you down
Oh, and if I had a brain, oh, and if I had a brain
I'd be cold as a stone and rich as the fool
That turned all those good hearts away