It has been ten long years of all sorts of misery, not all of which can be attributed to disaster of 9/11. However, I suppose that there has been a cascade effect of 9/11 responses that has twisted its way into virtually all aspects of our national situation, characterized by a financial disaster, twisted priorities, political polarities, and a loss of power within the international community. Apart from all of this, everything is cool!
What I want to comment upon today is my culpability in the ongoing meltdown of our political discourse and collaboration to solve problems.
While I would like to think that I am a rational and relatively peaceful person, I know that there is a strain in me that is intolerant of what I would consider to be less than appropriate responses to situations.
When I think back on my history, I know that I left high school scarred by my family history, but otherwise, I was relatively ignorant of so much. I knew so little of the world, had no thoughts or insights into human personalities, scant knowledge of history, literature, or the arts, and surely had no vision of a world view. What I carried into the seminary was a history of guilt, not so much for what I did, but because the Catholic Church was able to penetrate my brain with the fact that none of us deserve our gifts and it made sense that I would live a life devoid of human intimacy to ensure my salvation and, possibly, the salvation of others as well.
While in the seminary, my ignorance was clear. There were so many who were better educated than I. I took this fact as a challenge and I then became a zealot. I had an extreme need to know, to know just about anything and, as much as possible, about everything. During the seminary, I was taken back by the fact that for the first four years, I was taught some theological matters that were not only not "true" (i.e., not consistent with available theological literature), but the instructors must have known as not supported by theological gurus. I became then a person who no longer could depend on others for my knowledge. I had to find it myself and I did.
I came out of the seminary convinced that I had a vision for the Church that was supported by the Vatican Council. All that was needed was to persuade others, including my fellow clergy. When I found out how difficult, if not impossible, was the task, I became more aggressive in pursuing the "truth". I started to speak out more forcefully about the "truth" as I saw it. In fact, it then became personal because my personal world was impacted by the resistance of my fellow clergy and many of the parishioners. This pursuit of achieving change was swallowing me and, one way or other, I was going to lose. And, so I left.
Things quieted down during my return to graduate school. The need to adjust to married life and raising children was more than enough. Even my prior anger at our nation's involvement in Vietnam was abated. I watched the revolution occurring in Berkeley with interest, but no personal involvement.
From my understanding, my intolerance was not very striking until I retired. I enjoyed work enough and worked hard enough that my energies were satisfied. In retirement, I had more time to read and think that now it became apparent that I really was enraged by all sorts of things.
My slide from a devout and committed Christian steadily slipped into denial. I could no longer "liberalize" the inherent issues of Christianity. I began to see religions, all of them, as inherently a vehicle for promoting intolerance. I even became quite intolerant of religions!
And then, our nation's response to 9/11was like a catalytic converter for my intolerance and anger. I thought that the path advocated by President George W. Bush was a disaster and then some, And as time progressed, I saw more and more wrong with our policies and our national blindness. We were a problem to others in other nations and we would not examine our behaviors, including our expanding military role throughout the world, our overpowering involvement in the business of the affairs of other nations, our collective self-image of a nation that had it all. We were the best and, as such, we could not do wrong. We did not see that the nation's wealth and the maldistribution of wealth through the world would be self-defeating. We did not recognize that our military expansion would only result in more violence against us. We did not realize that our use of technology to control the affairs of others would only result in distain of our image. Somehow, we had become a super power without any controls. We even went down the road of torture, imprisonment with compliance with international standards, and killing of others without consent of Congress, e.g., use of drones to kill "enemies" identified by intelligence agencies.
While all this was occurring, our national politics became more divided and polarized. As much as I detested this divisiveness, I saw my own intolerance. I admit that I cannot understand the agenda of the Tea Party or the general Republican agenda. Granted, I have been more disturbed by President Obama's lack of leadership, i.e., exercising more control of the political agenda instead of allowing Congress to mess around with the development of legislation. Since I cannot agree with virtually anything that is espoused by the likes of Rep. Cantor, how can I expect the Democratic members of Congress to do any better.
But, the end result is clearly bad. Intolerance is a very disturbing feature of anyone's personality. I clearly wish that I was different and yet, at the moment, I don't see how. In a way, I am no better than the intolerance that prompted 9/11!
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