Dearest Blog Reader:
I hope this blog finds you doing well. I am fine. I am doing
well during a mini three day vacation here near the end of what I like to call
the effective summer. The effective summer is that time before you notice that
the days are getting shorter, and sooner than I wish, I will be riding in the
dark dodging assassin deer. It is an affliction that I suffer from because I
don't live in the present well. It won't be long now before our house starts to
empty out. Hillary, the Exodus intern will head back to Texas United States Ball
State
While I am fine, I have been drawn into a period of
lamentation. I have been trying to figure out why. Sure, part of it is emptying
of the house. That's not all. I think it is a culmination of many things;
Aurora, Colorado, the Presidential Campaign, a general sense that the goodness
of the populous may not be enough to carry us through the tough times, tough
times that are seeming to continue on and on, the hero worship of the Olympics.
All of these things have taken a toll.
To top it off, I have been listening to a Prayer for Owen
Meany. Like all of my literary adventures these days, it is an auditory
excursion. My drive, a two hour daily commute, uses up all of my curl up with a
good book time. But making lemon aide from lemons, I have plenty of time to
have someone else read to me. A Prayer for Owen Meany is, pound for pound, the
best book in the world for many Sharritts. We have each read it multiple times.
In fact, they have multiple copies in the house, except for when we try to
proselytize about its goodness, and give those multiple copies, save one, away
to other people to read. I and my brood love the book. I think for many
reasons. For me, it is the sense of duty; to persevere wherever God may lead you,
to count the cost and follow anyway. It is a book about having faith through
the veil of mystery. Another plus? It is a book that is been banned in several
cities in the United States
Don't get me wrong. A Prayer for Owen Meany did not cause my
lament. It just honed it to the razor's edge. That honing is a good thing. As I
have turned this blog over in my mind, it has struck me, that I do not do
lamentation well. I do anger well. I start on a lament; pulling this thread,
probing that theme and my anger is off to the races. Anger is a good rhetorical
tactic. Shakespeare exploited it in Julius Cesar. Marc Antony "I come not
to praise Cesar but to bury him." After a couple of times sarcastically
calling Brutus an honorable man, Marc
was moving into the palace, and chasing after Cleopatra and Richard Burton was
buying Elizabeth a really big diamond; ah, the disjointed cause and effect of
history.
No, a lamentation is hard for me to write. I tend to trend
toward and hang out with anger in my grieving process. Owen Meany has provided
the sharpness, the raw sadness to at least make me consider staying with a
lament.
I mentioned earlier that maybe the Aurora, Co. massacre, or
the upcoming elections were triggering my mood. No something has been gnawing
at me for a while. I have a firm belief the vast majority of people are very
decent and kind. They act out of a sense of self-awareness that looks out for
the welfare of others. However, recently I have started to doubt that.
Something is off. I am full of doubt. As I have let myself drift in and out of
the consciousness of this unease, circling in probing it, poking it with my
toe, I think that the problem for me is that religion or morality or even
goodness is often confused for political philosophy.
It is a confusion that is problematic. It is often couched
in terms of what God intended. I think it is more accurately characterized as
what I want God to intend. Who wants to be wrong in front of the big guy? I
don't. If I can proclaim that we see eye to eye, that God agrees with the
political philosophy of my large group of people, God is on our side and not
yours, so sorry but you suck. It seems unlikely to me that in a fallen world in
our fallen state that we would not divine that intention purely very often. Yet,
we go around acting as if we and God are simpatico
I am sure that you have friends who you don't see eye to eye
with who have reposted pages declaring "I am a ______." or
"Being a ________ means." You fill in the blank with either political label, and then they
have a picture or series of statements claiming the moral high road of all
aspects of the topic at hand. In reading or viewing these statements, I do get
a sense that the "I'm okay. You're okay." philosophy is in this case
abandoned. As I read these iconic tomes, I get the over riding sense that
"I'm okay. You're not." is the message being communicated.
About a month ago, I saw a post by a friend proclaiming an
affiliation that I don't share. It claimed the moral high ground; leaving
people who vote the way that I do with a set of beliefs that are best described
as undesirable. The thing that made me saddest was that it was posted by a
friend who I have worked side by side with in a difficult situation. I would
describe both of us as people of faith with a deep belief in God. It makes me
sad.
I think that is at the root cause of my sadness. Not that
people have lost their innate goodness, it's that half the political spectrum
has condemned the other half to badness. In this political season, the ranks of
the finger pointers grow. It's not that people have lost their innate goodness.
It's that I have been accused by people I respect that I have no innate
goodness within me.
Take care
Roger
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