The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
During our just-completed totally unnecessary gubernatorially-ordered hurricane evacuation, we stayed with a friend in Sun City, about eight miles west of the bridge to Hilton Head Island. We did, however, have a very enjoyable, quiet visit for three nights.
While waiting out the hurricane, I read Jon Meacham’s biography of Thomas Jefferson. Today, on the morning we returned home, I want to write about a Jeffersonian factor to which Jon Meacham referred several times in his outstanding book.
Apparently on numerous occasions, Jefferson received scathing anonymous letters from highly dissatisfied citizens. (Jefferson kept copies of every letter he ever received or wrote.) The irate epistles he got reminded me of my days as the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, NJ, and the First Presbyterian Church on Hilton Head Island.
I am sure you will find this hard to believe, but when I was the primary preacher at those two large congregations, I had a tendency to speak unusually candidly about matters theological, ecclesiastical, political, and social. In response, every now and then someone would send me a blistering letter about what I had said. On rare occasions these letters were signed, but most of the time the writer somehow forgot to affix his signature.
Mr. Jefferson was very averse to negative criticism, although he got used to it as the years passed. Early on, when I received scurrilous screeds, I too was both crushed and angry. Nevertheless, I would dutifully read the entire unabridged diatribe. Eventually, if I read the first two sentences, and concluded it was just another Nasty Letter, I would look to the end to see if the letter was signed. If it was, I would read it and respond. If not, I would insert it into my “Anonymous Nasty Letter” file, but I would not read the rest of it.
Somehow, in one of my many moves, the Anonymous Nasty Letter file got lost. Having been reminded it by Meacham’s book, I would have liked now to read those missives by which outraged people vented their spleens. Alas, they are either in a landfill somewhere (an unfortunate destination) or they have been re-cycled (a much better fate).
Since 1997, for five years I was an interim pastor, and for fifteen years I have been the pastor of a congregation with an average attendance of 35-45 people. Interim ministers and pastors of small congregations never get anonymous nasty letters. Such clergy are too innocuous to warrant bilious eruptions. Until I read the Jefferson biography, I had entirely forgotten how thoroughly I used to get roasted. Now I suddenly realized I have not been subjected to this for twenty years, and I rather miss it.
I leave you with a typical angry epistle to the third president (Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, p. 394): “I think you ought to get a damn kicking, you red-headed son of a bitch. You are pretty fellow to be President of the United States of America, you dirty scoundrel.” By my hazy recollection, none of my anonymous nasty letters had such colorful personal attacks, but the writers did let me know they strongly disagreed with positions I intended clearly to state. I have serious objections to some of Jefferson’s political ideas, but he had to have been doing something right to elicit such invidious invectives!
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.