Do We Care?

I have been shocked (perhaps naively) by the recent acts of violence in the United States; specifically, first, the home-grown terrorism of the bombs mailed to prominent members of the Democratic Party as well as CNN personalities who Donald Trump repeated call “fake news”, and second, the mass murder at the Synagogue.    The suspects in each of these cases were apparently influenced by the statements of Donald Trump.   It is important to note that they are still suspects who are not guilty until they have due process.  However, it is undeniable that Donald Trump has done a great deal to increase the further divide in a much-divided country and has set groups of people against others.  I specifically say groups as much of what he says is categorizing people not as individuals but as classes and races and groups such as transgendered.

This morning I read a fascinating article which was posted by Lorna Harris on her Facebook wall.  As an aside, I finally discovered what the Facebook Wall is having heard people refer to it for years and not understanding it is just when you post something on your Facebook Page.  But I digress.  The article is entitled “Silence in the face of evil” by Alan Bean   and can be found at https://baptistnews.com/article/silence-in-the-face-of-evil-learning-from-an-obscure-schoolteacher-who-urged-karl-barth-and-other-theologians-to-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-jews-in-nazi-Germany/?fbclid=IwAR2Q0rSXvzH_BLsTwZ8vYE21DgNHO0CXotE03r84wOinuUnRk5qw4xWlVNQ#.W9ci3WhKiUn

The link is good summary of the subject and speaks of someone in pre-WW2 Germany, Elisabeth Schmitz, who encouraged Protestant leaders such as Martin Niemöller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth to speak out directly against Hitler and Nazi actions before the war.  The author relates the silence of Protestant leaders in pre-war Germany to what is happening in the United States today and criticizes the religious leaders who support the President, “Trump is idolized by one-third of the American population because he never mentions these realities. In fact, he buries the guardians of memory under an avalanche of invective. The German Church never acknowledged her (the churches) complicity with the National Socialists, and the white churches of America are equally resistant to truth.” 

I am currently re-reading The Cry for Myth by Rollo May.  In his analysis of the classic novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the myth behind it, he argues that the Fitzgerald was writing about the emptiness of the Jazz Age and that, “behind our loneliness was the lack of authentic caring.”  May notes that Fitzgerald uses the “careless” on almost every page of the novel.  He further holds that, “The word “care” should be taken in its literal meaning: the ability of people to have compassion, to communicate on deeper levels and to love each other…Tom and Daisy has no sense of mercy, which expresses care and usually can be counted on to mitigate human cruelty.” 

May holds that the central theme of the novel is loneliness.  Jay Gatsby was a “the proto-type of loneliness.”  He was a self-made person and, “like all self-made persons, he was cut off inwardly from and deep relationship.”  This, it seems to me, to be exactly what and who Donald Trump is.  He revels in the persona of the self-made man who achieved all he did himself with just a small million-dollar loan from his father which, of course, he repaid.  The recent revelation that he received inestimably more (as least monetarily) from his father belies that foundation of the Donald Trump myth. \

Trump is decidedly, in my mind, at base a lonely person who must who seeks continually to be complemented outrageously by those around him and to receive adulation by the adoring crowds at the endless rallies that have continually been held since his election. 

So, what is the response to what we see going on in the United States. First, we have to realize it is not just in the United States.  The seeds of what is being harvested there are here in Canada and in the world today.  We must base our response on love which is the foundation of caring; caring for others and for the world.  We are called as Christians to love our neighbours and, more to the point, to love our enemies as impossible as that seems.  To love someone does not mean to blindly accept whatever they say or do.  We must show the love of Christ in our prayers and actions; it is not enough to hold them in “our thoughts and prayers” as is so often the response by those in leadership in our countries.  Prayers must be followed by actions.  We need to speak out when laws are passed to divide rather than show caring for those who are on the margins of society such as the decision there will be no more safe injection sites in Ontario. 

We are each on a journey, as I sign off each of these musings.   We are each on a journey but we do not journey alone.  We are on a journey where it is possible to care for one another or to live out or a sense of loneliness and futility as Jay Gatsby did.  It is up to each of us what that journey will be.  

May it be blessed.