This is one of the most difficult and dangerous posts I've made, though it might seem trivial to others. I am recovered enough from my shoulder damage to drive laundry to the laundromat thirty miles away, so I had time to think about it. It's quite relevant to the political news but dates back decades to before seminary.
Both were incidents like fishhooks that have tugged at my thoughts and behavior ever since. I'll try to disguise the parties but some people will figure it out. The first one was walking down the sidewalk with the handsome young intern minister. A beautiful young blonde was walking the opposite way across the street. The intern leaned over Bidenishly and whispered, "You see that girl over there? I'd really like to fuck her." I had no idea how to respond, so I didn't. I mean, the feeling might be natural and even positive, but why tell it to me and why in such an intimate fashion? I was twice his age. I never felt the same about him afterwards. In fact, he never became a minister, just a denominational bureaucrat.
The other incident was a woman about my age, a beautiful, intelligent, competent denominational officer in a time before women routinely became ministers. At a General Assembly of the denomination, this woman invited me up to her hotel room. I was flattered. But she proceeded to lecture me about what matters in life. A woman must seduce and hold a powerful, charismatic man by having his children, and become powerful herself through him. As she got drunker, she explained that she had seduced every president of the denomination (none women and all married ministers), even if their wives had asked them to stay away from her. She did it just to prove she could, she said proudly.
There are two major issues when I try to think about these two incidents -- which are linked since the two knew each other and were devoted to my minister. In fact, when late in life that man -- after being a powerful figure -- fell out of favor with the denomination, they helped make his retired life a pleasant one. When he died, they thought of me as their friend because I was his friend. I had nothing but contempt for both of them. They never figured it out. When they do, they will think of punishment.
It wasn't just the sex -- it was the narcissistic nature of it, totally blank to the social dimension of relationships like families. And it made sex simply the engine of fertility morality -- you can do what you can get away with, so long as there it produces no child and it's a secret. Maybe they think of this as evading the Christians.
But the dimension that I'm looking at now is a role that I consciously play and call "being the cat" who just watches without intervening or expressing an opinion. I think of all the witnesses who have covered for the demented president and all the people who have given Biden the benefit of the doubt, and I think how the world would be different if somehow they had told what they saw -- even spoken up to the people involved.
The anthropologists and the screen writers for non-interventionist space explorations have been reflecting on this as well. If we go to zero-base morality, each offence considered relative and maybe appropriate to the source, what are we really doing? This seems esp. troubling when sex and money are interchangeable, secretly. Such a world creates what we might call death-based morality, and leaves suffering out as well. It's inhuman and creating an inhuman world.
But then there's a third category in this reflection. Why was I called in as a witness? Because the cat says nothing? Or are they hoping I won't compete with them for the favors of this important man? Are checking to see if I will disapprove? Or do they think of me as a natural "second" who will transfer allegiance to them and support their importance? I'm not so good-looking and connected as they are, so naturally I will admire them. If I don't, I'm just jealous. It's like the high school star who always has a sidekick to run errands -- maybe fat or poor. Is that how Trump did it? It doesn't occur to them that being the observer cat is a choice and one that might change.
When enough of these incidents piled up, I left the ministry. There's lots for a cat to watch in a small town. But the Internet . . . OMG. Plenty of judgement, often unjustified, fantastic, and unheeded. The secrets are coming out and it's worse than we thought. But there are still a lot of things that I don't tell. The impulse to explain is always there, but I stay away from those who might tempt me to spill some beans. When I was with Bob and we let some journalist try their hand at publicity, they never got the story straight. They didn't even spell the names right.
On the other hand, there are things that need to be reported and sometimes "leaking" is very effective, even if it doesn't rise to the level of whistle-blowing. Keeping secrets can be moral, protecting lives. But it's not easy. I share information, thinking it will increase compassion, and it doesn't.
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