But there is a rather formidable paradox here. Truth, Beauty, Goodness get specific in all kinds of ways. For example, a genuinely holy person compels my attention because I perceive an integration of all the most admirable human qualities. And such beauty is so rare and exceptional that it stops me in my tracks, just as exquisite physical beauty does.
I began to feel this pulse more strongly this past week. Now I'd like to examine why. It won't be easy, but it's worth a try.
Recent election results, as well as voter choices locally and nationwide, have stirred passions and challenged minds. The good news: it is a widespread phenomenon. The bad news: it is a widespread phenomenon.
So what's the problem, and why has it got my attention?
First, I found an actual Facebook Page titled "I Love It When I Wake Up In The Morning And Barack Obama Is President." Second, I learned that a pastor said from his pulpit that: "We are a people who are severely disappointed over the fact that our positions and our candidates lost.”
I love the Facebook Page's candor, probably because It is actually and really how I have felt all week. The pastor's candor not so much. (And I have 'believed' longer than he has been alive!) I do not agree that "our" positions and candidates lost, and when a pastor becomes partisan in the pulpit, I am outraged. But this gets at the key thing about intelligent life. We need to recognize that no person nor political party has a franchise or monopoly on grasping total truth about issues and candidates. And separation of church and state is a good thing! We have a pluralistic society, and that also is a good thing. We honor that, and we honor those who died to ensure it.
What is so on the back burner is tolerance and respect for an opposite conviction. Shouldn't the differences still incite huge interest in understanding, learning and integrating all the political and spiritual issues and their philosophical and ethical basis? Couldn't we find a way to reject tea party extremism since we know it promotes a scorched earth, kamakazi, jihadist mindset?
It is not an easy task. And, certainly, education is crucial. But it has to go deeper than just the simplistic "I know what is right" or a wholly un-nuanced and fundamentalist, fire and brimstone belief system. Yes, I believe there is good and evil, right and wrong, BUT minds that can grapple with the enormity and complexity of the universe, the mysteries of the human body and psyche, should also be humble enough to admit we can be quite stupid about a lot of things every day!
I recall that I never thought in vitro fertilization would happen because God would not allow it. But it did happen (many times). It is what it is. And the ethical issues? That's what we get to figure outI! So I wonder why people are poor, or cruel or greedy or selfish or power-hungry or bigoted. I wonder why kids get cancer, or AIDS, or abuse. I wonder how dumb people get rich. I wonder why tyrants stay in power, why crops fail, why tsunamis, earthquakes, and hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy bring such incredible devastation. I wonder why "religious" belief turns into so many diabolical aberrations. I wonder why good people who value life also accept capital punishment, torture and pre-emptive war. I wonder why people don't sufficiently see the evils of unbridled capitalism and how it insidiously undermines democracy.
And then I remember and am glad for signs of intelligent life. That's what fuels my survival in the face of the batshit crazy political person shouting disguised obscenities in the marketplace. I remember that the God I believe in has created us free. And the country I am citizen of endorses that freedom. And I am convinced that most of us barely grasp even a tiny bit of what this means. And I wish I understood much more about the function of law in a civilized society, and why multiplication of restrictive laws can destroy people.
However, I will never be convinced that the messes I make, or that others make, are anything but ours. All the great belief systems, whether spiritual, political or scientific focus on problems and solutions and each finds empirical or mystical proofs that matter. (And, yes, because mystical theology is experiential, it is empiricle in my estimation.) But we often get it wrong. Often we cannot add two and two and get four. So then we blame God! Example? Most churches and peoples were initially incapable of responding appropriately to the AIDS pandemic. Preoccupied with righteous blaming of victims, compassionate love for them was lost. And way back when our Founding Fathers did their best for us, they did rather overlook racial and civil discrimination, and were themselves loathe to lose status, privilege, wealth and power.
So this is a stab at expressing why I am now actually curious about the study of political science, and why I know it is never good to get stuck in what I have already learned - even if it still serves me well. There is no end to what I might yet learn and assimilate. Life is hard and then we die. But the exhiiaration experienced by awareness - well, that's something extremely good and beautiful and true.
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| Arlington Cemetery, May 2007 |
