Ah, Huckabee; Ah, America!

This is in response to Mike Huckabee's lame speech about "God" and "our culture". I started to post it on Facebook, but it was getting too long. Imagine that!

As for the title: Thanks, Mr. Melville!

Re: Mike Huckabee's measured speech on "Where is God in all this?" He gets it partly right. We have "marched 'God' out of our culture". But not God, the Creator of all things. Rather, God the Concept. You can't kick out the Creator no matter how hard you try. And this "Concept" of God just happens to be someone who condoned everything that White people did in this country for two hundred years. Interesting.

Some guy said a while back that you can't serve two masters. Well, we've certainly tried to prove him wrong, haven't we? In true schizophrenic fashion, our culture tells us we can be both materialistic and spiritual at the same time. And, like idiots, we try. Just like when "Church" and "State" get together, the Church always comes out getting the raw end of the deal, so it is with our materialistic predilections and our spiritual yearnings. We give up our spiritual selves to our own detriment and the detriment of all those around us. With the goal of amassing more "things" we become selfish, egocentric, and insular. Now, think about the truly spiritual people that you know: you admire them, but do you emulate them? Would be dangerous, wouldn't it?

Huckabee clearly shows his secular bias when he claims that all this started fifty years ago. Curiously, that's about the same time that we started honoring the concept of freedom and liberty for ALL Americans. As long as spirituality is perceived as something "nice" (like Hummel figures on the mantel, as we've done in this country for hundreds of years) and not that which informs and directs every thought and every breath, we will be victims of our own folly--the latest example occurring in Newtown, Connecticut. Morals and ethics change because they are man-made. Spirituality springs from the Creator; therefore, it is timeless.

Just as we work in homeless shelters or food banks and never question why such disparities exist, so too do we flock to comfort those in great distress and all the time never ask why we have allowed things to get so bad.

It's not the ACLU and "atheists" who have "marched God out of our culture", it's the "well-meaning" Church with guidance and direction from Madison Avenue. "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Attack of the Baby Boomers!

Before attending her first soccer practice, my daughter Laura, who must have been six or seven at the time, climbed in the back of the van, buckled up, and said, "I wonder what kind of trophy I'll get." Don't blame Anne or me! We didn't teach her that. But that's what her friends and her culture taught her to expect. Her teachers, too. What went wrong?

When I was growing up, I participated in organized sports because I enjoyed the feeling of the summer sun on my back. I loved running across grassy fields. As part of a team, I was given a task, and I wanted to handle that task and succeed because it felt good inside to test my limits and see what I was capable of. In some areas I was greatly successful: with Mr. Toler on the mound during recess in fifth grade, I could smack a softball a mile. With Bobby Joe Harris on the mound in Boys' Club baseball games, throwing a curve ball at twelve years old, however, I struck out every time. In fact, in the course of the season, I struck out 26 times in 30 at bats. There's frustration, and then there's facing reality: this four-eyed phenom was not cut out for baseball. Instead of asking them to pitch slower, I started playing softball. In 1975, I played on a team that travelled to Florida to play in a national tournament. We came in third. I got to play exactly one half of an inning for the duration of the entire tournament in, where else?, right field. No one hit the ball to me, thank God. I must have been an OK player, because I did start some games at second base.

Yes, being successful does wonders for the way you feel about yourself. If you don't have any under-pinnings of self-worth, failure can be devastating. All you have then is your actions and other peoples' reactions. You learn quickly to engage in only those things that carry no risk: of failure, of embarrassment, of ridicule.

Baby Boomers are terrified of failure; so afraid that they created a world for their childen in which failure is impossible. Failure, then, becomes not a learning experience, but a disease to be avoided. If no one is a failure, then everyone is a success, and the concept of success becomes meaningless. Like a soccer trophy. When I was growing up, there were no trophies except for first place, and really, who cared? Well, someone did care, and that bothered the Baby Boomers. First place suggested a hiearchy, and weren't we all about tearing down hierarchies? White over Black, Men over Women? Rich over Poor? In removing the struggle to overcome injustices, we black-balled the notion of struggle. No one should have to struggle. What?

My students today always ask me, "Is this for a grade?" These are some of the saddest words I can think of, and I hear them every day. After eighteen years of teaching at an alternative school, I finally entered the world of the "real" classroom. I learned very quickly that if you didn't put a grade on an assignment, a lot of kids wouldn't do it. These students were unable to make the connection between an education and the rest of their lives. School was an anomaly. The concept of becoming an adult is meaningless. I never would have dreamed of asking my teacher the purpose of an assignment. I assumed they cared about me and my education and were doing their part to make me a better person. I trusted them. Naive? Perhaps.

So, how did we get here? I believe that Baby Boomers, in their compassion for the underdog, the down-trodden, the abused have attempted to create an ethos of benevolence: a feeling that everything will be OK if only we avoid pain and suffering and failure. Everyone and everything is good, and we must resist the urge to stress excellence because not everyone can achieve it.

Some people want to call this ethos " Big Government", but it's much larger than that. And more ephemeral. This is what is so ironic about the movement to eliminate suffering: it weakens us all.

I'm definitely not for a return to "traditional values", an ultimately empty phrase. The Victorian Age has wreaked enough havoc as it is. I'm no reactionary. But a return to, and an examination of "Value" is desperately needed. Read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" if you want to explore this concept further. It should be mandatory in high school. We, as a society, need to examine, debate, refine, and express with utmost clarity what we value in this country. It should start with an overt program-- in schools, on billboards, on stinky ol' TV-- that we value children. Of course it starts in the home, but it does take a village to raise a child.

Can we do this without mentioning God? I don't think so, but that's what the public forum is for.

"Can We Be Good Without God?" was an article in The Atlantic Monthly back in the '90s. It was written by Glenn Tinder, who is a Christian, so obviously, his answer was "No." The magazine really got slammed for publishing the article in the first place. The Church's contention that it holds a higher moral ground is specious, at best. I'm tired of amoral heathens thumping Bibles and wrapping themselves in the flag. They're doing their part to destroy the shreds of decency and morality that still exist in this nation. Which only leads to another problem: how do we re-establish respect for authority? That's a topic for another day. I think I'm rambling now. Perhaps your comments/reactions can lead me to a related topic. Let me know what you think!

The On-going battle between Love and Fear

Fear is easy. Love is hard. In a culture that celebrates what is easy, is it any wonder that being fearful feels as natural as breathing? The saddest thing about this is that the first victim of our inability to love is ourselves. Self-loathing seems to be the modern predicament, and the hardest part is that we're encouraged to hate ourselves everywhere we turn. Every TV commercial, every magazine ad, every billboard, in one way or another mocks us for thinking that we can be a whole, integrated person, content with what we have or even embarrassed at the excess we possess. Our world encourages us to crave Excess; we are supposed to be in a state of perpetual physical longing. We are discouraged from having an excess of Love, however, because when one is in that state, there is only one thing to do: give it away.

Is this predicament really any different from what people have experienced throughout time? Not really. What IS different is the immediacy of wish fulfillment. Not only can we have it, we can have it NOW! Immediate gratification, sadly, only exacerbates this feeling of never being filled, complete.

The corrective? Well, it's not popular these days. It's called "Spirituality". It is the part of us that we try to reason away. It's the part of us that Madison Avenue cannot sway. It's not a need for "religion", although that is often where it leads. It is merely the recognition that "No man is an island". Against the blaring horns of "rugged individualism" and the "self-made man", the human heart is constantly crying out for union, companionship, and community, for it is there that our wholeness lies. These are concepts that cannot be quantified or sold on stores' shelves. They can only measure in one of two ways: by the joy the heart feels when it is joined with others, or the anguish it feels when neglected.

The language of the needy individual surfaces from time to time, but it can be difficult to experience. It is given to us by the poets, the painters, and the artists. The good ones, at least. And who are the "good" ones? Ah! You must listen with your heart.

My One and Only Op-Ed Piece!

Published in The State on September 13, 2013

The “problem” of the homeless in Columbia will never be properly resolved as long as the approach of those searching for a solution is an “Us and Them” mentality. Only an “Us and Us” viewpoint can look at the problem from the proper perspective, and that’s very difficult for us Americans to do. Any time there is a “problem”, historically, we have had a tendency to look for a scapegoat or a trouble-maker, an “Other” that we can blame so as to absolve ourselves of any culpability in the problem. At the same time, there is the enormous hurdle we must first clear, which is the long, sad history of condescending Pity instead of Compassion applied to the problems of the “less fortunate” among us. Coupling this with the nagging reality that “less fortunate” in America has always meant anyone NOT “white, male, employed, and (usually) sober”, the complexity of the quandary increases dramatically.

Likewise, a humane response can never be articulated when the phrase “the homeless problem” is associated with the concept of “those who have become a blight on the community, a threat to economic viability, and an intrusion on one’s ‘right’ to be left alone”. Only when we can talk about the “homeless problem” in terms of “lack of jobs, lack of social services, and a lack of human decency toward one another” can we resolve the tensions created while maintaining our dignity. Sadly, the tenor of the discussion so far has been set by those who espouse the first of the two dispositions I’ve mentioned.

The impetus for this dangerous view of how our society should be shaped comes from a philosophy that claims kinship with the "inalienable rights" cherished by the Founding Fathers, yet this new Liberalism sweeping our nation actually only champions the “right to be left alone"--while eschewing the responsibilities that come with citizenship in this great country.  This is a radical departure from ideals concerning human conduct and relationships that have we cherished (and touted) for centuries, regardless of whether we sought to apply them or not. It is not a philosophy we can embrace without fateful consequences. As well-reasoned as so many of their proposals sound, they are ultimately only the baring of the fangs of a cornered wild animal, who will lash out violently, instinctively--concerned only with its survival. Back in the late '70s, Christopher Lasch said, "Self-preservation has replaced self-improvement as the goal of earthly existence." That's not a good thing.

Vote Andy Taylor for Sheriff!

Ah, the TV western: Gunsmoke. Bonanza. The Rifleman. Have Gun Will Travel. Rawhide. Wanted: Dead or Alive. Maverick. Lawman, and on and on. Everybody carried a gun, didn't they? When the Western moved to the city streets, the gunfire got turned up a notch, thanks to Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood. It wasn't about guns anymore; it was about BIG guns. But who was the strongest law man on the TV screen? Hands down, it was Sheriff Andy Taylor. He demonstrated his strength by NOT wearing a gun. He was not just the strongest, but also the wisest. Today, we would even say he was "centered". But he also understood Fear, which is why Barney Fife was allowed to carry a gun. And carry one bullet in his pocket. Our nostalgia for the "good ol' days" too often leads us to think of the frontier myth, the man who did his talking with at least one gun in his hand. He was the "rugged individual". He needed no one as long as he was armed and prepared to shoot. When we think in these terms today, we are turning our backs on two of the cornerstones of civilization: community and compassion. And when this happens, the first thing to go is common sense.

We have created a world that gives us the illusion that we don't need each other. We can do our grocery shopping; buy our gasoline; do our banking; do most of our shopping for clothes, appliances, wine, flowers, and car insurance without ever interacting with another human being. The person in front of us in the check-out line who writes a check may be exercising his own freedom of choice, but to us, he is a nuisance and an unnecessary intrusion into our world. What is easiest and quickest is, by definition, what is best. In other words, the less substantive something is, the better. We only want what is on the surface, the appearance. We no longer want to wrestle with the complexities that lay in the depths of experience. But it is there that Life dwells. We choose instead to be a beautiful corpse. Thoreau put it this way: "Why should they begin digging their graves the moment they are born?"

The fear that we feel now-- the fear that we are encouraged to feel-- comes from this superficial way of life that we have chosen. But "The Depths" will not be ignored, and we can feel them constantly, despite our best efforts to deny their existence. This uneasiness translates into fear -- fear of the unknown,  fear of Death, fear of appearing foolish, but mostly, fear of others. And it is this fear that leads so many people to reach for their guns. It is not really for self-defense that so many people claim to need firearms. Rather, it is the fear of being exposed as a vulnerable, weak, and needy person. In other words, it is the fear of confronting our own humanity. We have created a world that makes us feel god-like: informed (omniscient) and powerful (omnipotent). It is the most beautiful illusion Man has created, and despite what History tells us, despite what sacred writing tells us, we continue to strive to make this illusion our reality.

Andy Taylor saw the humor in this hubris. He saw the irony as well. He allowed Barney Fife his one bullet because he knew that deep within himself lay that same fear and that same desire to appear powerful in the face of danger. Oh yes, he certainly reached for that trusty shotgun of his, but always as a last resort, not as the kind of knee-jerk response we could expect from Barney. Law enforcement to Sheriff Taylor meant keeping the community united, not "locking up the bad guys" who, in Barney's eyes, seemed to lurking around every corner. Every day, both locally and nationally, we are subjected to situations that ask us to make tough choices about how we are going to respond to threats. How we view those threats is just as important as how we seek to confront them. If we see them as threats to our own personal safety and security, we will allow expediency to come to the forefront. If we see them as threats to the cohesion of our neighborhoods and communities, we will look for solutions that benefit everyone, even those whom we might perceive as part of that threat.

I don't see us thinking clearly in the days and years ahead, at least not in the near future. History tells us that people who are united in their goal of building a tower to the skies will ultimately fail. But from failure can come success. However, we need to remember that the myth of the rising of the phoenix includes a pile of ashes. The phoenix doesn't rise from towers falling or bridges collapsing or infrastructure crumbling or a certain number of scandals. It rises from the destruction caused by a conflagration. As horrible as this sounds, we should take comfort that  those who emerge on the other side will be beneficiaries because Experience is an excellent teacher.  But at the same time we know that the same old story will play out again, and committees will be formed in due time to build yet another tower to the sky.

"When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?"