Day: July 20, 2023

it’s been a record summer for heat and I suppose that I am feeling cranky. I already have a condition that causes me to have flashes of extreme warmth flashing through my body even on wintery days. Adding one hundred degree temperatures to the mix does not help to keep me cool and calm. Since I like being outdoors the fact that I am stuck inside does little to alleviate my surliness as well. 

I’ve turned to reading to fill my time since travel is not on the agenda this year. I suppose that my mood is reflected in the choices of books that I are filling the hours of the long, slow days of summer. All of them seem to be political in nature, but then what is not pulled into the political spectrum these days?

I began with an optimistic memoir by Dan Rather and then turned to a biographic view of Jacqueline Bouvier before she married John Kennedy. The difference in the early lives of Jackie and Dan was striking. There was a certain irony that Dan’s childhood in Houston, Texas in a low income area of town was so much happier than Jackie’s life of wealth and opportunity. Parents really do make all the difference in a child’ life.

Off and on I have returned to a book about chemical dependency written by a minister with a long history of counseling people with addictions. It is essentially a critique of our nation’s idolatry of money, success, power, possessions, entertainment. In our quest for happiness we all too often turn to things when the real center of joy has to be found inside our very beings.

I thought of the contrast between the lives of Dan and Jackie while reading the advice from the good minister. Essentially we humans spend way too much time seeking things and pushing our feelings deeper and deeper inside our souls. We don’t really talk to each other the way Dan and his parents so obviously did. We do not share our feelings and attempt to understand those of the people around us who seem to be struggling. Our stiff upper lips and stoic natures keep us locked in toxic situations that steal our joy.

There is a great deal of talk these days about what it means to be “woke.” The reality is that wokeness is not a political stance as many attempt to claim. Instead it is a way of analyzing ourselves and the world around us. Done properly it teaches us that we are part of a daunting family history that does not have to remain the same. With truth and knowledge we have to power to become better versions of ourselves. To do so requires facing our weaknesses honestly. Doing so does not bring shame upon us, but rather helps us to change our bad habits and move forward. 

I have not yet begun the book about the two hundred seventy two slaves that were owned by Jesuit priests who had founded Georgetown University. I had grown up as a Catholic never imagining that religious people would have even thought of buying and selling humans for any reason whatsoever. It was a stunning revelation to learn that such was an absolute truth that points to our human tendencies to distort the parables and words of Jesus to fit our personal needs. Even priests are not immune to such frailties. Knowing what they have done over time in the pursuit of their mission of spreading the word of God is all too often heartbreaking, but because of my own weaknesses I know that I am not so sinless that I should begin casting stones. 

I am also reading a book that was written by a Jewish writer living in Germany when Hitler first came to power. It is a novel that follows the fate of a prominent family who owned a furniture store. it is not a book that I can continue reading for very long because I already know what is going to happen to them unlike those who read the book when it was written before and during the purge of Jews in Germany. Sometimes it becomes overwhelming to watch the slow demise of the once happy and too gullible characters marching so blindly to their doom.

I suppose that I analyze the world a bit too much. It is something that I have always done. My mother saw this trait in me and often opined that “ignorance is bliss.” I used to wish that I was more clueless and jovial. It seemed like an easier way to be, but then I would not have been a very good teacher. I would not have noticed students who were struggling and then felt compelled to help them. I have always needed to know more and more about the truth of the world. I have always tilted windmills and yelled that “the Emperor has no clothes.” It is a kind of self torture and self actualization at one and the same time. I watch and learn just as my mother often counseled me to do. I hunt for the truth, even within myself.

I think we would all do well to engage in soul searching and truth telling. Looking the other way when a stranger is lying injured on the side of a road is not how we are supposed to be. Plugging our ears when someone is attempting to explain who they are destroys the autonomy of all of us. We can’t live happily ever after in Cinderella’s castle in Disneyland. No trips or stimulants or possessions can make us whole. Only genuinely taking the time to understand ourselves and our histories can bring us together and help us to realize that in the end we all are equal and worthy regardless of where we live or how much wealth we own. There is no divine right that favors some and ignores others. Our role should be to first heal ourselves and then give that glory to anyone anywhere who is suffering. It’s our challenge in the heat of this summer.