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Dear Daniel,
Two weeks ago, on January 31st,
snow began to fall. Three days later, I think, it stopped, at twenty inches.
Within days another six inches or so fell. Paterson is a poor city and that
snow is still clogging traffic, melting a tad and then refreezing, not as fluffy,
unique, six-pointed stars, but rather as black ice, the slickest ice that slips
up over-eager pedestrians. I fear cracking open my skull and mince slowly,
staring at the ground, assessing each surface as if it were mined. My hunched
mono-focus increases the claustrophobia.
We remain encased in rapidly decaying
whiteness. I walked around Garret Mountain the other day and did not see one
single deer. This is unheard of. I wonder what they are eating. Here is a sound file
from that walk. I came across dozens of crows spread across the ridge, making a
racket. Perhaps there was an owl about?
My soul is feeling encased in rapidly
decaying whiteness. Donald Trump's impeachment trial ended yesterday with a
bizarre acquittal. I write "bizarre" because Mitch McConnell, an
old-white-male Republican from the South, who, in a devil's bargain, while
secretly despising Trump, promoted him, voted to acquit and then delivered a
scathing rebuke that would have snuggly fit in the prosecution's briefcase.
McConnell is thought of as a master
politician. I think he blew it big time. He is now hated by both sides, as flames
on his Facebook page attest. Whatever you, atheist Daniel, think of Jesus, he
was a master of the pithy quote. "What shall it profit a man, if he shall
gain the whole world, but lose his soul?" Not a rhetorical question. Ask
Mitch McConnell.
The House Managers, lead by Jamie
Raskin, who buried his son the day before Trump supporters assaulted the
Capitol, were brilliant and heroic. But they lost. My tears insist that the
world really doesn't need another noble lost cause. The managers did, though,
create an historic record: the beating to death of a police officer, the
crushing of another police officer, the trampling to death of a Trump
supporter, by her own comrades – yes she really was carrying a "Don't
Tread on Me" flag as she died – Trump's callous refusal to call off his
goons.
Back in 2015, when Trump was running for
president, a slew of Facebook friends supported him. I tried to talk to them. I
really thought, back in those innocent days, that civil discourse and objective
facts would defeat any obstacle. No such luck. I was presented with a master
class in logical fallacies and ad hominem invective. Six years later, millions
of Americans believe that Hillary Clinton drinks children's blood. So much for
objective facts. A canard, both ancient and primitive, that has been used to
justify hatred of Christians and murder of Jews and others has achieved demonic
resurrection.
I learned, through my attempts to
interact in a fact-based, civil manner with Trump supporters, that sometimes
interaction with those who choose to define themselves as my enemies is
impossible. My Christianity places demands on me. I don't know how to carry out
those demands in a country where tens of millions of people support killers who
smeared feces on my country's temple to democracy.
I used to try to approach Facebook as a
sort of Benedictine monastery. Someone said that civility means that you talk
to people as if they will be here tomorrow. In other words, if you insult them,
you cannot escape the consequences of your intemperance. So it is in a monastery.
You have to live cheek-by-jowl with others, so you treat them carefully. You
can't escape your rudeness.
The other day, "Dorothy," a
Trump supporter, repeatedly insulted me. Her posts contained no facts, and,
indeed, no opinions about anything beyond her insults directed at me. I sent
her a private message asking her to stop. She refused, insisting, again, that
I'm a terrible person because I don't support Trump. And "terrible person"
is a euphemism. These folks are as foul-mouthed as their cult leader.
I realized: sure, I can approach my
Facebook "friends" as if they are my colleagues, but they don't
approach me that way. To Dorothy, I am not a fellow citizen. I am a punching
bag. I am a toilet. I am, possibly, a drinker of children's blood. Volunteering
myself to Dorothy is merely an exercise in pointless masochism. Jesus gave us Matthew 5:44, but he also gave
us Matthew 10:16 and Matthew 7:6. Quite a lot to
juggle. I don't know how to do this.
What has this got to do with you and me?
I've lost faith in civil discourse. I see society dividing into enemy camps. Not
just combatants, but words, reason, logic, cannot make it across no-man's-land.
I have no idea of your stance on Trump, but we've established that you are an
atheist and I am Catholic. Can we really talk?
I'm struggling to break out of the decaying
whiteness encasing me, and communicate with hope and faith. I'll move the way I
move when I'm coming into shore when swimming in the Atlantic Ocean that
borders New Jersey. The tide draws you back into the immensity and, of course,
ultimate death, and you resist that overwhelmingly powerful pull, and drag your
wet thighs and calves, bound with frighteningly insistent, rope-like water, toward
land. You do this, not, necessarily, because of faith, but because you are
terrestrial, and you need it. We are humans, and we must connect.
Catholic I will address the atheist points
in your recent letter in a subsequent missive. Stay well.
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