Who didn’t have to write a “What I Did Last Summer” essay upon, in one’s childhood, returning to school in the Fall?
Around Labor Day, my wife, Jackie, and I flew to Denver to visit our daughter, son-in-law and two little grandsons who live there. Between the two weekends of our visit, we took a week and ventured by car to Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone, including a tour of Wyoming–Cody, driving past the Grand Tetons to Jackson Hole, then down to Laramie and Cheyenne, before returning to Denver.
It’s quite a vista, a part of our vast nation neither of us had ever seen before. Given the heat and the drought, and the fact that we weren’t traveling during early morning or evening hours, it was disappointing that we saw so few animals, either wild or domestic. I had an image of seeing cattle or buffalo grazing on the hillsides, even bear or elk in the mountains or antelope on the prairie, but I guess they were trying to stay cool and find water to drink.
We did, however, see numerous wind farms dotting the Wyoming landscape.
Near Mt. Rushmore is another impressive sculpture, the Crazy Horse Memorial honoring Native Americans. The project isn’t finished, but the story of this venture is inspiring, and when completed it will be even more awesome than it already is.
Ironically, while spending most of a day driving through Yellowstone, stopping to see this and that, here and there, including–near the end of the circuit–watching Old Faithful’s periodic eruption, the only radio program we could get in the car was that of Rush Limbaugh, whose ubiquitous presence has captured AM radio all across America these days.
I say “ironic,” since Rush was, of course, railing against “big government.” Even while we were driving through an American treasure preserved by the relative “big government” Rush was deriding.
Perhaps you’ve noticed how those, not unlike Mr. Limbaugh, who chronically complain about the “size of government” only do so where it concerns, not their particular “needs” or “wants,” but those of others.
Or as someone has confessed: “I’m a conservative when I’m giving and a liberal when I’m taking.”
Listening to Rush Limbaugh rage against the “size of government,” I found myself thinking of how only “a government of considerable size” has been responsible for such important facets of our national life as: not only the national park system, but land-grant provisions for public education, the postal system, the Homestead Act, a graduated income tax, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the G.I. Bill–all of which were, or are massive distributions, or redistributions of wealth meant to benefit the population at large.
Or as the award-winning novelist, Marilynne Robinson, has observed, “The whole point of state colleges/universities has been to create an elite so large the name no longer serves, to create instead a ruling class more or less identical with the population.” (The Christian Century, 10-3-12).
______________
So now we’re talking politics. And during the week Jackie and I were driving across Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming, we were also watching the Republican National Convention on television wherever we were staying on any particular night.
Only to contrast that affair with another similar event on television during the week we returned home. Except the “complexion” (if you’ll pardon the term) of the Democratic National Convention was notably different.
Most of the people at the Republican National Convention looked like me and were closer to my age. Whereas the gathering of Democrats reflected far greater ethnic diversity and youthfulness, revealing a richly diverse tapestry of humanity closer to what out nation is increasingly becoming.
I’m, of course, more of a Democrat than a Republican. With “more of” being the operative perspective. Since, in a fallen world, no political party has a corner on truth or goodness.
That’s not, however, what the political rhetoric in ours or any era of American history would have us voters believe. Politicians deal in “absolutes,” as simplistic as it may be.
The evolution of my political preferences corresponds to our nation’s civil rights movement and the emergence of the “political/ religious right.” The former I consider “positive”; the latter, quite the opposite. Having lived most of my adult life in the South, I’ve watched the the Republican party become almost exclusive in these parts in response to the civil rights movement. While at the same time observing the GOP–ironically, the party of Abraham Lincoln, not to mention, the likes of an Ed Brooke, a Chuck Percy, or Mark Hatfield–contract into an unhealthy/unholy alliance of political and religious extremism.
Much harder, however, is relating popular political rhetoric to the radical claims of Christian faith. Since politicians make their pitch primarily on material terms–“I’m offering you a better deal.” While Christian ethics calls us to measure the meaning of our lives in a different direction, one that is moral and spiritual. As in the “self-emptying” (kenosis) of Philippians 2: 5-11.
If, in political terms these days, “success” and “achievement” are about having “more,” for a Christian, “more” is “less” and “getting” is found in “giving,” in creating a world where “sharing” trumps “competing.” This in contrast to a “consumerism” where “enough” never is. Indeed, authentic Christian faith is, ironically, more about “downward” than “upward mobility.”
Hence, the hypocrisy of the “political/religious right,” which I hardly miss a chance to expose, since it clothes its “politics” in the garb of fraudulent “religion.”
Unless you’re Paul Ryan and claim that the atheistic, materialistic philosophy of Ayn Rand has anything to do with Roman Catholic social ethics.
______________
But what about football?
A recent segment on ESPN television’s “College Game Day” lamented the epidemic of “poor tackling” in football these days, showing film clips of one of the game’s cardinal sins–“arm tackling.”
Not that this shouldn’t be expected, given the current alarm over football-related “head and neck injuries.” When coaches say “put a hat on him,” they’re talking about the correct way to “tackle.” Which doesn’t include moving your head out of the way.
I got the chance to play defensive back as a ninth grader on my high school’s varsity football team not just because I was bigger and faster than most boys my age. It was because, in tackling drills, I was at least masochistic enough to not “turn my head” when correctly “wrapping up” a ball carrier even bigger and faster than I.
Did I suffer some “brain damage,” half-a-century ago, from “tackling” in a “fundamentally sound way”? Ask my wife.
Even more alarming of late has been an arthritic condition, located by an MRI, between the third and fourth vertebra of my neck. I awoke one morning with what I thought was just a “stiff neck” from “sleeping crooked.” But by the end of the day I was nearly paralyzed in pain–the worst I’ve ever experienced–and, thanks to football fifty years ago, I’ve had both knees and hips replaced and two back surgeries. So, believe me, I know something about pain.
An epidural injection calmed my “arthritic neck episode” down. But then, capriciously, it occurred again. And I found myself thinking, for the first time ever, “I can’t live like this. This is not only unbearable, I never know when it’s going to happen. I can’t plan anything, lest I find myself in the throes of, literally, paralyzing pain.”
That’s when my wife, “Dr. Jackie,” came to the rescue. “You never had this problem before Dr. Jones took you off Celebrex,” she observed. Sure enough, I called him, and he agreed to re-prescribe that particular anti-inflammatory.
I now take the medicine each morning, and all is well, knowing that I’m only one Celebrex away from being paralyzed.
So what about football–and the “correct way” to “tackle”–was it worth it?
Hardly.
Except for the trade-off. Since most adolescent boys likely need at least an “appropriate way” to dissipate some of their testosterone and subsequent aggression.
Is football the “best” of “appropriate ways” for such a trade-off to be negotiated?
Probably not. But then I’m only claiming that half-a-century too late. Or as my buddy would say, “You’re not good, Monty, but you’re slow!”
