Saving The World

To begin with, I do not have “delusions of grandeur.” Well, not any that I will discuss at this point. But I really ache when I cannot prevent or solve trials and tribulations for my family and friends. I also ache for the wider world.

It is all about growing up. Nobody likes the reality of adulthood. (Do you recall the moment when you received your first electric bill? You were paying for something you didn’t even remember using.) With adulthood come the aches of the aging body and the heartbreaks of the world in which we live.

As a child, you always knew that someone – a grandparent, a parent, an uncle or aunt, or a teacher – would be there to make things all right. Sometimes the problem was as simple as an untied shoelace. Sometimes it was a great as a broken bone. But there was always someone to help fix the situation and find the smiles.

Now, I am the old man of the family – the patriarch. I do not rue the title, but I didn’t campaign for the position either. It happened by attrition. But, it happened.

I feel the aches of my family and those of my friends. But that is ok. What is not ok is the inability to make things “right.” This keeps me awake at night. A million here or there would enable me to say to my children, “go home and get creative.” Spend more time with those great grandchildren. To those who are jobless, I could hire them to work with those in need. The list goes on.

I want to salve the aches.

Those who know me also know of my “leanings.” They also know that I follow certain columnists in the New York Times: Gail Collins, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, and David Brooks, a highly reasoned writer. Often, Mr. Brooks is a bit too conservative for my leanings, but I have always found him extremely fair.

In his March 15, 2010 opinion column in the Times, “The Spirit of Sympathy,” Brooks writes about the changes in the disposition of our congress. Not the numbers representative of each party, but how the members interact with each other. He discusses how we have always had a “group mentality” in the House and a “person-to-person mentality” in the Senate. The House would work in blocks or groups to make decisions, where the Senate, being a much smaller, much more personal body, would resolve issues with one-on-one discussions.

Everyone knows that much can be lost in the group, whereas in the one-on-one, empathy can survive.

I recall two signal events in my life that changed the nature of who I was. One was an account by Corrie Ten Boom of the loss of family in a concentration camp during WWII. It was during the reading of her story that I became painfully aware that my “walk of faith” had to do with “hurricanes and cancer.” I turned to my faith only in the case of impending disaster. (“God, are you there.”)

The second event occurred when I was an alumni programmer for a major US university. I was running late for a meeting of alumni in a large city. The taxi let me out at the door of the hotel where a luncheon was taking place. As I hurried to get into the event, I brushed past a woman and her young daughter of about 8 years old standing outside on the walkway. They were seeking a handout. I looked and then reasoned, “she will probably use the money for drugs or alcohol.” (Group mentality at work here.)

I went into the alumni meeting and faced a crowd of very successful, upwardly mobile types with their luncheon drinks in hand. Everything taking place in front of me was about façade. Immediately I remembered the woman and her daughter. I was embarrassed at my indifference to them. At my lack of care. I turned around and made my way back to the hotel entrance. I needed to do the right thing.

She was gone. I looked up and down the street; the pair was nowhere to be seen.

At that moment, I made a pledge that I would never be faced with an opportunity to help without offering whatever I could without questioning how it would be used. My role is to respond – to only respond.

Both these events happened one-on-one.

However, as Brooks points out, our Senate is now behaving just as the House: as a group, not one-on-one. In this present climate, he observes, “The remnants of person-to-person relationships, with their sympathy and sentiment, will be snuffed out. We will live amid the relationships of group versus group, party versus party, inhumanity versus inhumanity.”

These are our adults, our Patriarchs. (Grow up! Quit fighting like a bunch of unruly kids.)

To the Congress, I offer this: there will always be abuses of the system. You can count on it because the system is powered by fallible human beings. However, to worry about the “abuses” more than the “uses” is to leave many of those in need unserved. And your job is public service. Become passionate about something more than getting re-elected. Find the humanity!!! (And also see if you can find a way to make the Senator from Kentucky smile. He is scaring the children.)

Recently, my grandson in Texas told me that the “motion m’tector” had gone off in his ear. (Any loud noise always occurs “in his ear.”) Then he said, “granddaddy, how is your m’tector?”

I pray that my m’tector will always be sensitive to my family, my friends, and to my world. I wish that I could solve it all, but perhaps together we can make a dent.

Congress, how is your m’tector?