James Hudnut Beumler Popular Books

James Hudnut Beumler Biography & Facts

The parable of the drowning man, also known as Two Boats and a Helicopter, is a short story, often told as a joke, most often about a devoutly Christian man, frequently a minister, who refuses several rescue attempts in the face of approaching floodwaters, each time telling the would-be rescuers that God will save him. After turning down the last, he drowns in the flood. After his death, the man meets God and asks why he did not intervene. God responds that he sent all the would-be rescuers to the man's aid on the expectation he would accept the help, and the axiom that God acts through humans and other earthly entities. Frequently retold within the American Protestant community (although Catholics tell the story as well, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish versions have been recorded), the story is considered to reinforce the aphorism that "God helps those who help themselves" and rebuke those who believe that God works through divine miracles, preferring instead for people to do his work on Earth. Outside of the religious context, it has been used by speakers and writers discussing marketing strategies, politics and workplace safety training. During the COVID-19 pandemic, modified versions, in which the religious man refuses several entreaties to wear a mask and later to get vaccinated, finding out after his death from the disease that God motivated those people as well, circulated among Christian communities to counter vaccine hesitancy. Several novelists, including Jeffery Deaver and Richard Ford, have had characters tell the story in their fiction; an episode of the TV series The Leftovers also takes its title from this story. It is not known when the story was first told, although it is believed to date to the early or mid-20th century United States. Those who have considered its origins speculate that it might have started as a joke at the expense of Pentecostalism, an evangelical denomination that believes God still works miracles on Earth. A deeper reading has it as a way Christians reconciled a belief in an omnipotent God with the increasing ability of human technology to accomplish that which had previously seemed impossible. Synopsis A typical version, as recounted on Psychology Today's website in 2009: A storm descends on a small town, and the downpour soon turns into a flood. As the waters rise, the local preacher kneels in prayer on the church porch, surrounded by water. By and by, one of the townsfolk comes up the street in a canoe. "Better get in, Preacher. The waters are rising fast." "No," says the preacher. "I have faith in the Lord. He will save me." Still the waters rise. Now the preacher is up on the balcony, wringing his hands in supplication, when another guy zips up in a motorboat. "Come on, Preacher. We need to get you out of here. The levee's gonna break any minute." Once again, the preacher is unmoved. "I shall remain. The Lord will see me through." After a while the levee breaks, and the flood rushes over the church until only the steeple remains above water. The preacher is up there, clinging to the cross, when a helicopter descends out of the clouds, and a state trooper calls down to him through a megaphone. "Grab the ladder, Preacher. This is your last chance." Once again, the preacher insists the Lord will deliver him. And, predictably, he drowns. A pious man, the preacher goes to heaven. After a while he gets an interview with God, and he asks the Almighty, "Lord, I had unwavering faith in you. Why didn't you deliver me from that flood?" God shakes his head. "What did you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter." Variants In some versions the minister exhorts every rescuer to go to the aid of someone he perceives as more vulnerable first. In others the man questions the faith of those who would rescue him. Another version has the first rescuer come in a land vehicle, enforcing an order to evacuate; in some versions that start this way the helicopter is dispensed with in favor of the two boats. The divine figure at the end who delivers the punchline is also sometimes not God but St. Peter, in his capacity as the gatekeeper to heaven, or Jesus. Novelist Richard Ford has a character in his 2006 The Lay of the Land tell a version he calls "the three boats story". The protagonist, instead of being threatened by a rising flood, is afloat in the ocean without a life preserver. Three boats come by, all of which he refuses in the belief divine intervention will be his salvation; God informs him after he drowns that the boats were his intervention. Scholar David Cooper similarly records the parable as involving three boats, albeit taking place in the usual setting of a rising flood rather than the open sea. In the version he retells, the protagonist is also female. He also writes of a Jewish version, in which the protagonist is a rabbi who, after his death, angrily asks God why all his dutifully performed mitzvot did not move God to save him. "You schmuck!", God responds, in Yiddish. "I sent three boats!" In her book Replenishing the Earth, Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai retells the parable as "a popular Buddhist story", in which the protagonist appeals to Guanyin for intercession. Some versions end with a reminder that the protagonist was actually not as faithful as he believed himself to be, since he failed to recognize the rescuers as God's promise being kept. Versions with St. Peter as the interlocutor have him telling the man he will be forgiven for his lack of faith right before the punchline. Ford's version goes farther, with the man being condemned to Hell for his faithlessness. Global warming variants This parable has been related to the issue of sea level rise in the context of climate change. It was specifically related by Al Gore to the residents of Tangier Island in 2018, an island in Chesapeake Bay which is threatened by the sea level rise. COVID-19 variants Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, commentators recognized the applicability of the parable to the situation. It was soon rewritten to directly address the challenges containing the disease posed. In April 2020, as cases in New Orleans rose, a contributor to magazine The Big Easy rewrote the parable for the pandemic. In it, the man responds to speeches from politicians, celebrities and finally social media posts from his friends, all urging him to wear a mask in public, practice social distancing and regularly wash hands. He responds to all of them by invoking God's protection; however he is eventually infected and dies. As in the primary version, the man confronts God, who is at the head of a large group of people, over this failure. God rejoins that he moved all the public figures and the man's friends to make speeches and social media posts, but since the man failed to heed them he could not be saved from the disease. Noticing the people behind God, the man asks who they are; Go.... Discover the James Hudnut Beumler popular books. Find the top 100 most popular James Hudnut Beumler books.