Dear one,
As an American baby boomer, I have lived with the underlying conviction that my parents’ generation, the “greatest generation,” those who lived the Depression and WWII, 1929-1945, knew what it meant to be “united.” Admittedly, this unity, a true union, came through the furnaces of national trauma and sacrifice, and equally true, it was forged amid debate, anger, protest, and violence.[1] Moreover, the acidic caldron called “Viet Nam” began to bubble, corroding and/or burning away much of that union, laying bare: we experience “unity,” when Something or Someone much greater than ourselves binds us together.
From another vantage, our national “unity” can be seen in those trends, which characterize us as a people. Typically they begin either on the East or the West Coast, and then eventually sweep across the country, revealing those traits, which reflect a united “character.” Within the last two decades, for instance, our responses to 911, the crash of 2008, as well as the present pandemic reveal those American traits of problem-solving, focus, resolve, and perseverance. Thus, what began on the Coasts, and initially unintelligible in the Middle States, became a virus impacting all of us.[2] So too, our pleasurable preoccupations, our use of language and thought-forms, and our relational behaviors sweep from one corner of the land to another. “American” means character.
Given these observations, I return to my last blog and the characterization of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1-19). Not only do their actions reveal that very human trait: the desire to be gods, but equally, blaming. When asked what he had done, Adam did not answer; rather, he blamed Eve. Likewise, when asked what she had done, Eve blamed the snake. The logic is clear: the snake would have blamed the badger; the badger would have blamed the bear; the bear would have blamed …
Blaming: that ingrained (innate?) tendency to refuse responsibility for our actions; our unwillingness to own: “I failed—I made a mistake”, followed by our unwillingness to ask: “Will you forgive me?”
I wonder, how might we be characterized, what unity might emerge, should we refuse to play the “blame game”? What might happen should every American household, including the houses of Congress and the White House, refuse to play? If charity begins at home, so too does the honest admission of failure and the giving and receiving of forgiveness.
Often wondering,
Stan
[1] Between 1929 and 1945, approximately thirty-one strikes, three of them nationwide, occurred within the US, or on average, approximately two/year.
[2] This is true, if Indiana reflects the “Middle States.”