Becoming a Lion

For this left-leaning Catholic from New England with a passion for policy, there are few people held in higher regard than Jed Bartlet, who, unfortunately, is imaginary. Ted Kennedy has always been one of those few, as I would guess he has been for other northeastern Catholic Dems. Kennedy spoke our language. Much like Obama has done over the last few years, he announced to the world what we believed in better language than we could ever come up with on our own. He fought for things that we didn’t even know we wanted to fight for until he brought them to light.

We live in an era without second chances. One scandal, one misstep, one howl (remember Howard Dean?) and you are out like yesterday’s trash. One of the more compelling themes to come out of reflections on Kennedy’s tenure in the Senate is the consequence of his longevity. Rather than simply celebrating longevity for longevity’s sake, I cherish that longevity for giving us a model of great endurance and growth.

Our beloved “Liberal Lion” was not born a lion. He stumbled through youth like the rest of us, making tragically bad choices and enduring scandals that would put our current generation of blathering adulterous squirts like Mark Sanford to shame. Because of his name and because of his era he could keep going in public life and continue to work not only to make America what he thought it should be but to become what he should be as well.

When I look to Kennedy as a role model (in some things, not all, surely) it is because I see an example of someone who grew up. Lions are made, not born, and as I scamper around like a dumb cub swatting at toys and losing my balance, I feel hope that with perseverance and self-correction I can become who I am supposed to be. No matter how painful life’s discipline may be we have a choice to be broken or a choice to continue becoming. The elder Kennedy had become someone who was truly admirable, someone who had refined his message and knew for what he was fighting.

Nowadays public figures have to be perfect all the time. There’s no place for a sordid history, and those who hope to live in the public eye need to start preparing for it in childhood. There can be no smear or blemish, because all of the rest of we damaged people won’t allow that in our heroes. I, for one, relish the opportunity to celebrate a damaged, sinful hero. We don’t have to ignore the sinfulness to admire the goodness of someone who had the good fortune and the grace to mature.

Health Care, Soundbytes, and Talking to a Dining Room Table

Barney Frank was my first taste of Massachusetts politics. I heard him speak at BC during September of my freshman year. He made a snarky comment about Jerry Falwell and I laughed loudly, to the shock and disapproval of my fellow students who seemed to think that being impressive had to involve being prim.

In other words, it was love at first snark. Because of this, I follow him with great attention, although he manages to get attention all on his own and I don't usually have to look very far to find one of his soundbytes or quips. The clip I have posted is pretty soundbytey, but I suggest taking a look at the footage over at NECN, which paints a much more thorough picture and which, most importantly, includes the entirety of the question that Frank's interlocutor asks.

I haven't really been following the health care debate. Yesterday I heard the man behind me at the grocery story shouting into his phone "Don't you think it's a shame that all the other G8 countries provide health care?" and I knew he had to be getting his information from somewhere. It's a shame that most of our sources are so absurd: email forwards claiming that taxpayer money will pay for abortion or that the government will decide to pull the plug on old people. As someone who has made peace with the idea of our representative democracy, I am always aghast at people who propose that our elected officials (who are overwhelmingly women and men of good will) have monstrously sinister motives and plans. Don't get me wrong - I don't think politics is perfect, or even always nice. But I do believe that what we have here are groups of people who disagree on the best way to do right by the most people.

The media won't show us that, it's not nearly sexy enough. Talk radio gets us all in a huff, self-righteously defending our 'side'. Then people go to town-hall meetings (the purpose of which continues to elude me - is it really just to have a screaming match?) and they all shout and make good television. What a coup for the TV news. What Larry King doesn't mention in his little clip is that the questioner is quoting Lyndon LaRouche of all people, and I think we all know that there is a special place in the looneybin for LaRouche supporters. So she gets set up as the poster child for the anti-healthcare camp, which isn't fair to the plan's opponents, while Frank looks like a hero for taking an easy shot at someone who really does need to be shot down.

This is interesting and important stuff we are dealing with. Maybe I'm a hopeless optimist, but I think the country is capable of a more sophisticated debate than the one we are being handed. My optimism runs out when I think realistically about whether or not we will ever be presented with enough dispassionate truth and honesty to really understand what these conflicts are about.

The Can Lady Consortium

Any BC alum who was paying attention (or who ever set foot in the mods) is well aware of the Can Lady, who trudged around campus on Saturday and Sunday mornings retrieving our empties from bushes and sidewalks. Even the most justice-oriented undergrad (and there were plenty vying for that award) could use her activity as an opportunity to feel self-righteous about littering, of all things.

In retrospect this was probably not good for the moral development of BC's privileged students - and before you get all huffy, fellow alums, let me remind you that anyone who can go to a school like that is privileged one way or another, either with family influence, wealth, or simple academic inclination. So what if we had small Asian woman cleaning up the debris of our attempts at bacchanalia? We were doing her a favor, or at least that's what we convinced ourselves.

With due respect to my Boston College roots, there is a new can lady in my life. She lives around the corner from me and her back deck leans out over the path to my backdoor. I can remember one evening out with a friend of a friend who happened to live down the block who started talking about our charming can lady. "I give her all my empties and she calls me her angel!" the young woman effervesced. I am sure I shocked her when I started complaining about the cute old Lithuanian lady in the babushka.

In fact, I probably came off like a complete shrew. But on Tuesday night, the night before garbage day, I was repeatedly awakened through the night by her rattling through her empty bottles. I really don't know what she does on that deck with all the empties, but it involves relentless clanking all through the night. I am getting the urge to type all in enraged caps just thinking about it.

I have also seen her going through my garbage bags. I don't know which is more insulting, the violation of my private space or the insinuation that I don't recycle.

But what is most disturbing to me are all the moochers who have teamed up with her to use her space. There is a parade of people in and out of the gate next to mine, wheeling their suitcases and shopping carts up and down the street to see what they can get from our garbage. One of them sent her son who couldn't have been more than ten down the street to pick through the barrels looking for good stuff.

For what it's worth, I don't think that any member of the Can Lady Consortium is sinister enough to have been the person who burglarized the apartment last fall. I still could do without my corner being dumpster diving central.

Panem nostrum quotidianum

Everytime I finish a gig I fly into a panic.

I'm probably not alone in that regard. I know that other singers do it, my guess is that most freelancers have the same experience. You hardly have time to enjoy one success before you convince yourself that there is no more success coming up down the road. We want our calendars packed full for years at a time. We want to know what's coming.

Do we ever really know what's coming?

Two Sundays ago in the first reading from Exodus we heard the Israelites doing what they do best in the Pentateuch: grumbling. God, in response, tells them that quail and bread will be provided for them. They are not to store up manna, but God will give it to them every day.

Today it hit me during the Lord's Prayer: When we ask for our daily bread, we aren't just asking for food, we are asking only for that day's portion. Maybe part of that prayer needs to include asking for the patience and the faith to be satisfied with just that one day's portion and the promises that God has made.

I don't want to be patient or take things one day at a time. I want to know that my relationships will stay the same forever. I want to know that I will be an employed musician for many years. I want to know that the people I love will live to old age. I usually revel in the surprises of life, but in my sinful human nature I have decided that some things are so important that I need certainty - more certainty than the promises of God. Promises aren't good enough: I want predictions. They don't come.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. -- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"

If it's not fun, do it anyway

Yesterday afternoon involved a long car ride in the rain to pay respects in front of a very small casket. It was the sort of afternoon that totally drains a person, but it made me so glad that there are small things we can do to lift up the other people in our lives and that I surround myself with people who are willing to do those small things.

On the way home I saw a car with that old Ben and Jerry’s bumper sticker that reads “If it’s not fun, why do it?”, and I thought seriously about leaping out of our car and banging on the other driver's rear bumper. As you know, I love fun, and I have often thought that I might be able to get behind a slogan that read along the lines of “If you have to do it, why not make it fun?” But sometimes things are not fun, they are just awful, and we do them anyway because that is what human beings do.

It’s just a bumper sticker, don’t get so worked up about it. I think anyone who has been paying attention to the world knows that it’s not just a bumper sticker. It’s a way of thinking that allows us to ignore people around us who are in need if their need seems inconvenient. It lets people get away with not going to funerals because “it just reminds me of the last time I was in church, for ‘so-and-so’s’ funeral”. It keeps grieving people waiting to hear from the people who are close to them, who because of embarrassment and dis-ease decide that it’s not worth reaching out to try to comfort someone.

Some of the things we do are just not fun. On my worst days I think of them as the price we pay for living. When I’m particularly thoughtful or philosophical, though, I think that they are the only thing that can sustain us. When someone needs you, you go to them, whether or not it is convenient or comfortable or fun. Much of our lives are simple duty, and that duty is the manifestation of the love that in the end can be our only hope.