{"id":145,"date":"2008-12-19T23:44:16","date_gmt":"2008-12-20T05:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theproviso.com\/?page_id=145"},"modified":"2026-02-22T18:45:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T23:45:42","slug":"atlas-shrugged","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/extras\/vignettes-outtakes\/dirty-little-secrets\/atlas-shrugged\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlas Shrugged"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

JANUARY 1985<\/p>\n

Sebastian: 18<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI WILL NOT have that book in my house!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, Dad\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave it to him, Charles,\u201d came the stern voice of Sebastian\u2019s mother, who emerged from the kitchen to find out what had set Sebastian\u2019s father off on one of his weird kicks. He had a lot of those. \u201cHe needs to know something other than\u2014\u201d She gestured around at the immaculate but broken-down living room. \u201cThis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, don\u2019t you start with me, Dianne.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you<\/em> start with me<\/em>,\u201d she shot back. \u201cI want something better for my son. I want him to understand that living in poverty is not<\/em> a virtue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebastian sighed and looked at the thick paperback his father had pitched across the room. Old, dog-eared, highlighted, marked, written on, the edges with tiny teeth marks where mice had nibbled. He could go get it; his father wouldn\u2019t slug him or anything. But there was that underlying respect there that made him hesitate.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving something while other people have less isn\u2019t a virtue, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to take care of ourselves first!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebastian didn\u2019t know whether he was expected to stick around and hear this argument for the four hundredth time, but he certainly didn\u2019t want to. He wondered if it was too soon to slip out of the room without being noticed or if he\u2019d have to wait another five minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking care of ourselves means taking care of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people you \u2018take care of\u2019 bleed us dry, Charles. They\u2019re moochers. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re overly generous or just a mark, but there is no value in sending good money in to chase after bad. We have to eat. We have to have a good roof over our heads. We have to have dependable transportation. Giving everything away doesn\u2019t help us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not what Christ taught!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebastian rolled his eyes. There it was. The last bastion of an indefensible stance his father knew was indefensible somewhere deep down in his soul. It always got pulled out early in the argument because he had no other support for his feelings<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That was his father\u2019s problem. He felt<\/em>. He didn\u2019t think<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cChrist didn\u2019t teach poverty for poverty\u2019s sake. He didn\u2019t teach that we should give everything away to the detriment of our own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fight turned again, as always, into a loudly voiced theological survey of the value of having money versus not having money. His mother would win intellectually, but would lose practically and, as his mother blocked the threshold of the stairs and his father blocked the door to the outside, Sebastian plopped himself down on the couch to wait out the storm and lost himself in thought.<\/p>\n

About what had happened to Giz Sunday at church.<\/p>\n

The girl needed some female support, that was for sure. All the Vogue<\/em> and Cosmopolitan<\/em> and Harper\u2019s Bazaar<\/em> in the world wouldn\u2019t help her get where she wanted to go. Neither would her mother, who was as ignorant of fashion as she was and, worse, ridiculed it. Sebastian\u2019s mother would be no help; she\u2019d chastise Giselle for wanting to spend her money on anything but citrus futures.<\/p>\n

He<\/em> could call their glamorous cousin Victoria to rescue her, but Giselle would probably resent it because Victoria would not be kind. She wouldn\u2019t be cruel, either, but Victoria said the first thing that came to mind and she would state the obvious if it were on the tip of her tongue. The obvious was devastating, and Aunt Trudy speared Giselle with it every chance she got\u2014for her own personal amusement.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, once Giselle had evolved from duckling to swan, she wouldn\u2019t have a snowball\u2019s chance in hell of fending off the predators who\u2019d take advantage of her na\u00efvet\u00e9 and willingness to trust.<\/p>\n

Just like the girls at church.<\/p>\n

Giselle was good with a gun, good with the street crowd, good at their inner-city school. Confident, poised, with just enough humor to keep situations from exploding. She made friends of her enemies and drew people to her. Give her a straight-on fight and she\u2019d win every time\u2014but allow the back door of her psyche to creak open and let in the mists and shadows of deception and coquetry and flattery, the hopes of acceptance and the stirrings of hormones to be used as weapons against her and she had no chance. So she stuck her nose in her romance books and dreamed of the day a man would come along who would be able to break through all those defenses to make<\/em> her accept his attention and love.<\/p>\n

That was never going to happen. Dating took work, and Giselle either didn\u2019t want to put in any of it or was scared to death to fail. In Sebastian\u2019s opinion, it was best she stay ugly for a while, her sexual discovery carefully shepherded by the boy who was as invested in staying chaste until marriage as she.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what this is?\u201d his mother demanded. \u201cThis is envy<\/em> and pride<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

That snapped Sebastian out of his musings. That was new, fresh, and different, and he waited for her to explain because it sounded \u2026 exactly right<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re envious<\/em> of people who have more than you, and you want everybody to think<\/em> we have more than we do.\u201d Sebastian almost flinched \u201cEnvy and pride, Charles! That is not<\/em> what Christ taught.\u201d<\/p>\n

His father was struck dumb. He wasn\u2019t even angry, just \u2026 confused. And hurt.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd!\u201d his mother went on. \u201cThere are no poor general authorities!\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, boy. That was a very low blow, and he was disappointed in his mother for doing it. She had always taught him not to say deliberately cruel things to otherwise kind people, so she must be at the end of her rope.<\/p>\n

His mother ranted on, twisting the knife. \u201cTell me something, Charles. If poverty is such a virtue, why doesn\u2019t the Lord call poor men to be general authorities? Or stake presidents? Or bishops? Poor men don\u2019t get leadership positions in the church. Tell me why that is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everybody knew why. Poor men didn\u2019t have the financial resources or the types of jobs that would allow them to fulfill such demanding positions in the church. Being a bishop was a full-time job in and of itself. No man who wasn\u2019t at least middle management could pull that off and still pay the mortgage.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d heard once that other protestant religions paid<\/em> their clergy and their musicians and their secretaries and most every other position they had to fill to make their churches run, which Sebastian found utterly inconceivable. Getting paid<\/em> to serve the Lord?<\/p>\n

Ridiculous.<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2026 bad example! You want to be bishop? Quit giving everything we have away. Keep some of it, invest it, make more, be smart about making more, not work so hard for so little reward. How can anyone who\u2019s so lost in his pride and envy be a good steward for the Lord? How can anyone who can\u2019t manage to pay his bills be an example to others?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pay our bills,\u201d Sebastian\u2019s father growled, devastated that she\u2019d used his greatest disappointment against him.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarely!\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, in practice, \u201cbarely\u201d was a lie, but his father didn\u2019t know that, didn\u2019t need to know it. For the purposes of the argument and his father\u2019s reality, it was the absolute truth and had always been.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not in debt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBarely!\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, a lie, but his mother didn\u2019t give away her secrets to be used against her.<\/p>\n

There were three things Sebastian\u2019s mother could say that would break his father\u2019s soul, and she had never said them:<\/p>\n

One\u2014 His father couldn\u2019t provide adequately, and, because he wouldn\u2019t allow Dianne to get a job because The Rule Book said it was a sin for women to work outside the home, she couldn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

Two\u2014 His son<\/em> was doing half the provisioning via<\/p>\n

Three\u2014 illegal means.<\/p>\n

The Rule Book also<\/em> said that \u201cimprovidence,\u201d defined as not being able to care for one\u2019s family, was a sin. Number three would probably get pulled into the argument eventually, but Sebastian was pretty sure there would come a day soon after Sebastian left home when his mother would not be able to tolerate this life one second longer and leave.<\/p>\n

His father said nothing for a long while, his barrel chest heaving, addressing none of what his mother pointed out. Finally he just growled, \u201cI don\u2019t want him reading trash like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrash\u201d that Sebastian had already read. Several times, which he hadn\u2019t had a chance to tell his mother before his father had intervened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes against everything the church teaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mmmm, not really. It was just a different spin on the parable of the\u2014<\/p>\n

\u201cOh!\u201d his mother said in a falsely bright tone that irked his father to no end. \u201cLet\u2019s re-read the parable of the talents, shall we?\u201d<\/p>\n

His father\u2019s color dropped. Ah, so he\u2019d forgotten\u2014intentionally or not\u2014Christ\u2019s financial commentary, upon which Sebastian\u2019s mother had lectured him endlessly.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnswer the question. Why are there no poor general authorities?\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlie Taight coveted a bishopric; he always had and Sebastian had always thought he would\u2019ve been good at it\u2014until she pulled out \u201cpride\u201d and \u201cenvy.\u201d Sebastian certainly didn\u2019t want to be a bishop\u2019s son, but he didn\u2019t have to worry about it as long as his father refused to own more than anyone else in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Sebastian sighed and arose from the couch. No matter what, he was getting out of here. He had debts to collect tonight and he couldn\u2019t stand that the only thing his parents ever fought about was having versus having not.<\/p>\n

★<\/p>\n

20260222<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JANUARY 1985 Sebastian: 18 \u201cI WILL NOT have that book in my house!\u201d \u201cBut, Dad\u2014\u201d \u201cI gave it to him, Charles,\u201d came the stern voice of Sebastian\u2019s mother, who emerged from the kitchen to find out what had set Sebastian\u2019s father off on one of his weird kicks. He had a lot of those. \u201cHe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":39,"menu_order":4113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-145","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23469,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145\/revisions\/23469"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}