We’re a Nation of Shipwrecks
who happen to have the mightiest fleet in the world
For me, it started young
Based on experience as both a participant and an observer, religion does not seem particularly healthy. I see the kind of people it turns out, including me. While I can make rational arguments supporting the opposing view, I’m not a particularly strong debater on this particular subject, mostly because I’m put off by the arguments: they tend to become didactic. Because most everyone in religion seems to want to ‘prove’ how right they are.
EDIT: Truth is, I’m not against religion. I’m against how we sometimes tend to use it in manipulative ways. And I guess that kind of triggers me at times.
For the first part of my life, I was a bit of a shipwreck when it came to defining myself. I found it very odd that my unassuming behavior seemed to elicit an air of certainty in others. What with various people tending to tell me who or even what I was, which inevitably led to their becoming concerned or disappointed when I didn’t turn out that way. Which concerned and disappointed me, too, to be candid.
It took many years before I started glimpsing the first inklings of the advantage I held. It was the advantage of not being something at all, although not in a nihilistic fashion. Being nothing in particular had a way of giving me, completely unexpectedly, a form of high ground in terms of perspective.
By the time I hit 30, I was no longer particularly religious, agnostic, atheist, fundamentalist or anarchist. Along the way, I experienced so many people telling me how wrong I was or questioning my judgment, that I had little need to prove I was right. While that might sound a bit noble on paper, it was actually a pretty miserable position to be in at times.
Anyway, I somehow managed to alight in a land pressed between tall cliffs, like an odd sort of valley. It was very much a state of being. Kind of like landing between ‘being somebody special and significant’ and ‘being an insignificant nothing’. Neither one fit, neither one was true or false. Yet, somehow they were both vividly true.
When I was 19, and coming off a year of working three jobs to pay for my first year of college, I bought a small blue portable Smith Corona electric typewriter to take with me to school. I saved and saved and saved for it. My younger brother asked me one day, right after I had brought my prize home, if he might borrow it to type a major report for a high school class.
An image flashed through my mind in the instant before my answer. It was that of one of my friends, who was a year ahead of me in my soon-to-be college. His name was Chris.
I thought about Chris’ virtuous Christian life and shining Christ-like example. He owned a car, had a nice guitar, a stereo, a portable fan for his unair-conditioned dorm room in hot and steamy South Carolina. He was even lining up the perfect fiancé, exhibiting yet another sign of being ‘on track’. He had everything, including self-assurance.
In that split second, I thought about how Chris took such good care of his stuff, in large part by literally locking things away and never lending anything out. That’s right. He’d never let anyone borrow anything. “You learn not to do that in the Navy,” he stressed.
“No,” I replied to my instantly perplexed brother. “I don’t want to put any wear and tear on it.”
And in that moment, something small began to happen in me. Out of the shame of that fractional incident of selfishness, would grow an extraordinarily meaningful lesson — that of my lifelong lesson and repulsion of how religious leaders and followers often model behaviors of sanctimonious selfishness — just as I had. It bit me hard.
It’s everywhere — what have we done to ourselves?
While writing this, I kept thinking about things that ‘get to me’. Things that our society has taught us. Things I’m not proud of, things resulting from an intensely consumer-oriented, self-praising, achievement-oriented culture.
- It’s when that woman behind you speeds up to cut around you, getting to the cashier a split second before your package drops on the counter.
- It’s the man who pushes everyone aside to get on the train, leaving a handful of astonished passengers on the platform as the doors close and the train rolls away.
- It’s the group walking down the busy sidewalk, stepping into Neiman Marcus without even a glance as they shuffle past the homeless man on the sidewalk beneath their fashionably clad feet.
- It’s the long line of expensive cars leaving Sunday mass, and none of them stopping to donate to a hungry family literally huddled on the church sidewalk itself. Yeah, a family of four. With a modest, hand-written sign. And not one car stopped.
- It’s the mega-church ministers who proudly send missionaries to convert ‘natives’ in countries they know little about, while spinning pretty stories that make their members feel safer and more secure, now that they are generous. Meanwhile, they’re defined by the things they’re against. They’re against sin, against abortion, against national healthcare, against socialism, against opposing views or beliefs, and most tragically of all against questions and against the unknown.
- It’s the CEOs and their boards crafting absurdly bloated golden parachutes, while not paying overtime to their minimum wage employees, and not caring about health insurance or retirement benefits for their workers. Because they have theirs. So why care?
- It’s the largest corporations in America creating tax dodges so they can hoard even more money, while most Americans are just a single paycheck away from financial disaster.
Something happened between the idealistic 1950s and the new century. Our culture decided that being a kind person made sense only if it included wealth and benefits. This became particularly true of far too many of our so-called leaders and role models. The noble craftsmanship of honest and benevolent leadership and statesmanship withered away. Our nation began to see the rise and glorification of the Opportunists.
Even basic politeness is disappearing
When I grew up, we were taught to say please and thank-you, yes ma’am and no sir, to give up a seat for women, small children or the elderly, and to be considerate in holding the door open for people. I taught the same polite behavior to my kids. But today, when I’m polite with holding that door, too many people feel entitled to take advantage of gentleness and politeness, preferring instead to rudely bulldoze their way to the front of the line.
I get upset with the rudeness, with being brushed aside from my place in line while three or four or ten carnivores take my place because they’re entitled. Rudeness is no longer the isolated incident. Nope, that virus has long escaped the laboratory. If we’re not careful, every last bit of gentleness and consideration in the world will disappear, forever. Sometimes it discourages me to the point that I’d rather just die and leave.
All that being said, I have no interest in hanging out with the wealthy or the powerful. Their cars and attitudes exude elitism. We now seem to idolize being selfish, judgmental, misogynist, racially biased, inconsiderate, privileged, and self-entitled.
Not me. Give me a different ship to sail. Even if it’s in steerage.
Put me with everyday people, or the poor. Or the average working family. Put me with people who still care. Watch me climb in a modest car, and learn how to better ‘live small’. Put me next to working people, and give me my denim and lace-up work boots. Keep me in the construction industry, because building things tends to make people more genuine and honest.
I refuse to become overly centered in selfishness again. It’s an utterly embarrassing way to live. I’m done with that shit.
