Having a "Huh?" Moment

 

 

            “You’re something the Catholic Church fears: a thinking Catholic.”

Those words were uttered to me by a priest once, a million years ago, when I was in my 20s.

No this is not a blast on Catholicism, or even a blog about religion. It’s more of a “Huh?” about the modern world.

To put the statement in context, I used to sing and play guitar for our parish’s guitar Mass. Every year, the group had a picnic at a park about an hour from where we lived. I always found that odd, since there were parks closer to home, it was usually a hot day, and there was no place at the park to swim. We would invite the priests, but they usually didn’t come.

One year, one of the priests, who liked our group’s music, decided to go to the picnic. He didn’t know how to get there, and I didn’t have a car, so he offered to drive me there since I could show him the way.

Along the way we chatted about miscellaneous and sundry things, and at one point got into a conversation about that day’s gospel, which was the one about the rich man giving his money to three of his servants and telling them to take care of it until he returned. Two of the servants invested the money, which I considered a risky thing to do with someone else’s money. They were lucky they didn’t lose everything, and they were rewarded for making extra money for him, which, in my opinion, he had no reason to expect. The third did exactly what he was told to do, and buried the money, giving the man back exactly the amount he was given, exactly, to my mind, all that the man should have expected back. And that servant was punished. I thought that was grossly unfair.

Yes, yes, I understand the point that the money --“Talents” -- was a metaphor for one’s talent in life, but taking it on face value, the parable is unjust.

When I pointed out that one of the men investing the money should have suffered losses, since that was a real world situation -- just as having talent in an area, but life situations preventing it from being used -- he told me I was putting 20^th century values -- this happened back then -- on the gospel. Quite the “Huh?” moment.

Of course, I felt that if it wasn’t relevant to the century we’re living in, what’s the point, anyway? And then he said what I quoted at the beginning of the blog.

I apparently don’t pick up the undercurrents of things people tell me. Perhaps that’s why I don’t understand the world I find myself living in.

For example, when I was a wee, small child, my mother told me that we shouldn’t judge people by their race, religion, gender, ethnic background, and by extension, sexual orientation, we should look at the individual, and decide by their values and behavior whether or not we wanted them as friends.

 I took that to heart to such an extent that sometimes, if someone else mentions someone race, religion, gender, ethnic background or sexual orientation, I have to stop and think, “Really? I never noticed.”

This is not to say my mother didn’t have her own prejudices; she did, and I recognized them when I was much older.

However, when I was in seventh grade, my teacher, who was a nun, started a conversation with my class about a movie that had just come out, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, which 1) we were not old enough to see, since it had an R rating, and 2) involved bi-racial dating, something that was apparently taboo at the time. After telling us the premise of the movie, she asked us -- 12 and 13-year-olds, who were too young to be allowed to date -- if we would date someone of a different race. Keep in mind, this was an all-white school in an all-white suburb in the late 1960s.

I listened with increasing disgust as my classmates said they would, but their parents wouldn’t let them -- always blame someone else -- and very few were brave enough to admit they would never consider it. The hypocrisy was overwhelming.

I finally raised my hand and told the good sister that I wouldn’t have a problem with it, and told her what my mother had taught me. Sister was apparently pleased at my parents’ forward-thinking ideals. I was proud of myself and my family.

But when I arrived home, my mother was less than proud of me when I told her about what happened in school.

“You said WHAT???!!”

Another “Huh?” moment.

Apparently, what I was taught at home was a state secret, because, if discovered, what would the neighbors think? My mother, it seemed, was afraid of my classmates’ parents thinking ill of my family because of what I had said. I didn’t think it was memorable enough for them to tell their parents.

My thinking was that people should be happy to see that someone was living according to what Jesus was telling us in church every Sunday. Sigh. I just didn’t get it.

Flash forward to today.

I used to feel safe going into Philadelphia. However, with the uptick in gun violence, I don’t have it on my radar as a place to go.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry. That only happens in the neighborhoods,” people often tell me. And while that’s somewhat true, “The neighborhoods” is racist code for certain parts of the city. However, at least two deaths and a couple of other shootings in Dilworth Plaza, which is part of City Hall’s footprint, the very epicenter of Center City, puts the lie to the idea that shootings only happen in “the neighborhoods.”

And people wonder why I think they’re ridiculous telling me I’m brave to travel to Europe alone? I feel safe in London; not so much in Philadelphia.

So it was a real shock on my latest visit to the UK when I heard that someone had been shot and killed -- randomly -- in Wallasey, near Liverpool. Add to that the fact that, when I heard about the shooting, I was visiting a cousin in Wallasey, and it had only happened a few days earlier.

Beyond the sadness that this had happened, especially since it had happened on Christmas Eve, was my first thought: where did someone in England get a handgun? That was also the first thing I was asked by my friends at home when I told them about the incident.

I live in a country that, sadly, has reached the point that gun violence on a daily basis is almost expected. But the Wallasey shooting was yet another “Huh?” moment.

Back in America, I think something needs to be done about the violence, although, given our laws and the people who think anyone who doesn’t own a gun is a radical looking to take away their guns, I don’t know what we can do about it or how to even start. (Don’t get me started on guns. If you really want to know, check out my previous blog, “The Not So Okay Corral,” Aug, 2018.)

It’s sad to think I have to go to another country to have a good day out.

That’s not to say I’d go to just any other country. There are several I don’t care to go to, either because they’re such crowded places, or because of their political regimes.

For example, although I’ve been to Russia in better times, I wouldn’t go there again as long as their current leader is in power. That means I’ll probably not be able to go there again in my lifetime.

New Zealand, on the other hand, is definitely on my list of must-see places.

I love to travel and meet people different from myself, but I can’t always do so, which means I need to stay in my own country sometimes. And I do realize that other countries have their own problems, some of them the same situations we have here. I know that some situations I’ve seen reported on television are almost world-wide, and it saddens me, mainly because it demonstrates that humans largely haven’t learned from the past.

The other day I saw a report on someone being attacked solely for being Jewish. My immediate response was, “What is wrong with people?” (ask Blue Scream of Jeff – read his blogs –and he can tell you. He was there when I said it.) I feel the same when someone is attacked for being Black.

Every time I hear about a Jewish group being attacked, I ask myself if we’re living in 1930s Germany or Russia, and if not, why we’re still not better than that. Ditto for blacks, women and LGBTQ+ people.

Every time I hear about “ethnic” groups being attacked in countries around the world, I think about the fact that those same countries have been through this before. Why haven’t they learned from it yet?

To quote a song by the Manic Street Preachers, "If you tolerate this, your children will be next."

We seem to be going backwards, too far backwards.

I’m a child of the ‘60s. Peace, love and understanding -- and by the way, some fantastic music!-- We protested against war. We protested against injustice. We marched for civil rights. 

If we’re going to go backwards, let’s go back to those ideals, not the wild west, or the ethnic cleansing of the 1930s and ‘40s, or even the so-called Communist purging of the 1950s. I was raised with the ideal of eradicating bigotry as far as possible. I was educated in schools that emphasized social justice.

Although I wasn’t a member of Girl Scouts, they have a basic rule that you leave a place better than the way you found it. I’ve always tried to be that person. Or, to quote Maya Angelou, “When you know better, you do better.”