Spiritual Common Sense

Here we go again.

On Monday, another man, said to be insane but armed to the teeth, pulled the trigger on a tragedy that ended the lives of a dozen innocent people, shattered the lives of their families, and shut down Washington for much of the day.

Nearly a week later, all we really know about the shooter at the Navy Yard is that he was a lot like many others who took the same path.

We know he was probably mentally unbalanced.

We know he shouldn’t have been given a security clearance.

We know he shouldn’t have been allowed to buy the weapons he used.

We know a lot of people in Washington are talking about this incident.

And we know no one is going to do anything about it.

That’s the e saddest part of this sad story.  We know it will happen again.

We haven’t had a mental health policy in the United States since the 1975 Supreme Court’s ruling in the Donaldson case provided and excuse and the opportunity for states to relinquish their responsibility for the mentally ill and dump them on the streets.

We are no closer to a rational gun policy now than we were before Columbine, Tucson, Aurora, Ft. Hood, or Newtown.

What makes matters worse is that these are only a couple of the many systemic problems are society hasn’t addressed.

You can blame Congress.  You can blame the lobbyists.  You can talk about corruption, special interests, and our increasingly dysfunctional political system; but in our hearts we know we have no one to blame but ourselves because we allow these things to happen.

Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  If you accept Einstein’s definition, we can’t keep electing the same people and playing by the same rules and expect things to change.  If we want things to change we have to reset the political process and try something different.

After a lot of thought, here’s my suggestion –  Let’s throw them all out.  Handle Congressional elections the way they handle the budget process – indiscriminately.  Make across the board cuts – every incumbent, good or bad, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican needs to go because if they aren’t part of the solution they are part of the problem.  Let’s throw them all out, this year and next year and every year after until they get the message they can’t get re-elected until they turn things around and start putting the people first.

According to a Gallup poll released last week, the trust and confidence the American people have in the federal government’s handling of both domestic and international problems is at an all time low –  lower even than it was during the height of the Watergate scandal in 1974.  The good news in this sad state of affairs is that it indicates there is a strong base of support for stopping the political insanity.  If enough of these people can be enlisted in this campaign, it won’t take long for the politicians to get the message.

 Twelve years ago but the memories are still fresh.

The Senate Office Buildings where I grew up looked like they were under siege. Concrete barriers blocked the streets.

Police were posted at intersections leading to the Capitol.  The National Guard could be seen patrolling the grounds.

Chicken wire surrounded the perimeter of the Hart Senate Office Building.  HAZMAT crews in their space suits could readily be seen moving about in and out of the building.

What used to be the Senate’s day care facility had been turned into an emergency response center.  It was across the street from where The Heart of America was housed at the time.  Daily, we could see people lining up for testing and treatment where children once played.

The country was still reeling from the aftershock of the World Trade Center when we were staggered by yet another blow – an Anthrax attack.  “Not again,” the soul whispered as the news broke, fearing the worst, wondering how many times the heart can break.

But in the midst of all the pain and sadness came reason for hope and cause for gratitude:

• The way our country responded and the way our people came together.  In truth, we answered their worst with our best.
• The courage shown by those whose lives were shattered on September 11, their grace under pressure.
• The rescue workers and those who lined the streets of New York at all hours of the night, applauding the rescue workers on their way home.
• The opportunity to redefine heroism in terms of service.  Before September 11 if you asked people about their heroes, kids would talk comic books and adults would talk sports.  Now when you ask about heroes, the image that comes immediately to everyone’s mind is a man or woman in uniform rushing into danger to rescue another human being in peril.
• The leaders who rose to the occasion and provided unimpeachable evidence that “Yes, the system can still work.”
• The reminder that freedom is our core value and that freedom is always at risk.
• The opportunity to stop and collectively consider what truly matters in our lives.

Now and then, it all comes down to the unending battle between darkness and light.  Daily, we are challenged to answer hate with love, evil with compassion, ignorance with understanding.

Increasingly as I grow older, I find myself considering the decisions that dictated the direction of my life.

I chose not to attend my high school graduation ceremony, eager to head for Washington, D.C. where I had a summer job at the U. S. Senate.  Though it was not a conscious decision at the time, it is clear now I was making a clean break with my past.  I still think of the Rockies as home but I never went back.

The separation was so complete I don’t remember – if I ever knew – who spoke to my graduating class.  Instead, I marked my transition to college and the real world by reading essays from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.  This I remember clearly because one passage has always stayed with me.

“As life is action and passion,” Holmes said, “it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at peril of being judged not to have lived.”

Holmes’ observation came from the perspective of a civil war veteran injured three times in battle, Harvard law professor, Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court for 30 years, and the oldest man to have ever served on the Court.  Clearly, he had walked the talk and “lived” fully.  I resolved to follow his example and embrace life.  I was confident Washington would provide abundant opportunity.

A few years later, Doc English, my favorite teacher in law school, telegraphed another change of directions when he told me I probably would not make a good lawyer because I had an overdeveloped sense of justice.  A Philadelphia lawyer with years of trial experience, he knew what he was talking about.  It took me several years, including a year clerking with a law firm, to figure out he was right.

These things – my overdeveloped sense of justice and desire to share in the action and passion of my time – led me to the Mall 50 years ago.  The March on Washington was an unprecedented event.  I wanted to show my support and be part of it.

The collective memory of this event now focuses on Martin Luther King and his powerful words but the moment wasn’t so defined at the time.  King was one 18 speakers assembled for the occasion.  All of them had something to say.  It took history to show us King said it best.

My strongest memory of the moment, then and now, was not what the speakers had to say but the spirit of the occasion.  Everyone there knew we were part of something important, something special and transcendent.   The silent witness provided by the peaceful presence of so many people seeking justice spoke eloquently to the collective conscience of America, challenging us to live up our ideals.

The other indelible memory of the event was that it was permeated by fear.  The potential for violence was almost palpable.  Embedded in all that and perhaps feeding it was the unstated understanding that things were changing.  For most people, particularly those who embraced this change, Dr. King was a hero, a prophet who signaled the direction.  But some saw him differently.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was concerned enough by the march and Dr. King’s speech to step up their investigations of the Southern Christian Leadership Council and target King specifically as an enemy of the State.  Speaking for the FBI, William C. Sullivan, head of Bureau’s intelligence operations, said, “We must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security.   Prominent politicians lead by Senator Strom Thurmond were quick to agree and launched an attack on the March, labeling it Communist.

This animosity did not go away quickly.  When Dr. King was assassinated five years later, I was in law school.  I had just met my favorite law professor and was about to be drafted for Vietnam.  I watched as much of Washington went up in flames.  I remember seeing the smoke from the steps of the Capitol and talking with other Senate staffers about the riots that followed with sadness and disbelief.  No one knew where it would lead or how it would end.

The elevator talk that day was all about Dr. King’s assassination and the tragic events it triggered.  On one of my runs, a passenger heard the discussion and held back.  After everyone else had cleared he said, “It was about time somebody killed that son-of-a-bitch.”  In shock, I watched Strom Thurmond walk off my elevator and head down the hall.

It’s been fifty years.  Everyone knows a lot has changed.  Everyone knows a lot remains to be done.  For many people, the American Dream remains unfulfilled.  But it’s worth remembering that America is and always will be a work in progress.  America is an ideal to cherish and a dream to pursue.  We have come a long way but we still have a long way to go.  Every generation is challenged to share the action and passion of its time and form “a more perfect union.”

Uncle Jim was the black sheep of our family.  He conned my father out of his life’s savings, bilked friends, and swindled strangers in a seemingly endless series of get-rich-quick schemes.

As a boy, I remember being increasingly embarrassed every time his name came up.  While the family stood by him, I know they all felt the same way.  My father took it hardest.  He carried the hurt of his brother’s betrayal and dishonesty for years.

It was sad and difficult to watch, but sadder still was the way my Uncle died.  He died alone in a rundown boarding home miles from home.  By this time, he had so isolated himself with his unrelenting selfishness that he was dead two weeks before anyone knew he was gone.

Jim always thought that if he had money he would have everything, but his unbridled ambition cost him everything that mattered.  He always thought someone else could be conned into paying the bill, but he should have known better.  His mother, my grandmother, often reminded all of us “chickens always come to roost.”  Our seemingly independent lives are rooted together beneath the surface and tied to a common source.  By necessity, each life is bound to help every other life linked to it.  We cannot close others out without shutting ourselves in.

I often wonder if my uncle ever really thought about what he was doing.  If so, how could he not know that wealth will not bring happiness?  There is abundant evidence of that fact.  Napoleon, for example, at one time one of the richest and most powerful men on earth, wrote in his diary that he had only experienced five days of happiness in his entire life.

Goodness always precedes greatness.  Happiness comes from serving the purpose for which we are intended, fulfilling our potential, and, in so doing, finding God’s will for us.  In the final analysis, the measure of a man is not how many servants he has, but how many people he serves.  Happiness comes from serving others, not from having others serve you.

One of the most remarkable people I have ever met was Benjamin Rossow.  Ben was one of Rachel’s kids (Forget Yourself below) and of all her children perhaps the most challenged.  Born without a brain, all he had was the cerebral cortex – a brain stem – to guide his actions.

The potential quality of Ben’s life and the possibilities of his birth were judged so limited, the men of medicine who brought him into the world concluded there was no point to his life.  A boy without a brain would never run with a football, grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer, or contribute in any meaningful way.  He would never walk or talk or have any hope of sustaining himself.  Besides, they said, it was unlikely he would live more than year under the best of circumstances.  They decided the best thing to do was to just let him go.

They never asked Ben, of course, and if they had he could not have answered.  But fortunately, Rachel answered for him and took him home to be part of her remarkable family.

When I met Ben a dozen years later, I saw him respond in ways doctors said would not be possible when he was born and still cannot explain.   Benjamin tracked his mother with his eyes, responded to her embrace, and laughed when she laughed.  He not only knew who she was, he knew where she was all the time

More than that, I came to understand Ben was a pure person.  He knew nothing of prejudice, never learned to hate, and never even dreamed of harming another person.  All he knew was love – the love he was given and the love he gave – and that love enabled the child who it was said would never make a difference to change the Baby Doe laws in three states.

Most of us live with doubts that inhibit our actions.  Our fears often create failure and a list of unrealized possibilities filed under what-might-have-been.  Benjamin, on the other hand, never knew doubt and had no fear.  As a result, while most of us use only a fraction of our potential he was performing at least at l50 percent of what was said to be his capacity.

Simply stated, the basic principle of evolution is that what is used develops.  Birds fly not because they have wings; they have wings because they fly.  The overarching lesson of Ben’s life is that it is not our impossibilities that fill us with despair, but rather the possibilities we have failed to actualize.  The greatest defeat we can suffer is the distance between what we are and what we can be.