Month: October 2022

I am reading a book about Lincoln. Though not a Lincolnphile, I find myself being drawn back to him time and again. Part of it is the plethora of great books written about him, from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals to George Saunders Lincoln in the Bardo. Part of it is that for all the iconography around Lincoln, he still comes off as a real human being, with significant faults to go with his many virtues. But mostly it’s because you can go back to his own writings and speeches, without interpretation, and find nugget after nugget of wisdom and common sense that still rings true today.

One of the greatest speeches Lincoln gave was the Second Inaugural Address, in March of 1865. After four years of incredibly bloody war, all of which was painfully felt by Lincoln, the outcome was finally in sight. There was no doubt that the North was going to win. Sherman’s march to the sea was over, leaving a wake of devastation behind him. Grant was about to launch his relentless and brutal final push through Virginia. If there was ever a time to crow, this was it.

But Lincoln was not one for Mission Accomplished speeches. Instead, he gave one of the most thoughtful and reflective orations of this, or any other war. Lincoln avoided the undoubted temptation to proclaim the righteousness of the northern cause and invoke God as sanctioning the victory. Instead, he pondered the war and concluded: “Both [the North and the South] read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes”.   

As I read this again, I was struck by the humility evident in this passage. We all have the tendency to impart our beliefs with a sacrosanct sense of rightness. Too often we leave out the inevitable ifs, ands or buts that make any pronouncement suspect. Yet here was a man with the weight of countless deaths upon his shoulders avoiding the temptation to assuage his conscience by proclaiming the sanctity of his cause when it would be easy to do so. If any acts of Lincoln were super-human, this was it.

I contrast this with the seemingly accelerated tendency of politicians today to not only cite their religious beliefs as driving policy positions, but intimate, or actually assert, that God has personally directed them to adopt those positions, or, even worse, that they speak for God. For example, in 2015 Texas Governor Rick Perry suggested that God had instructed him to run for the Presidency. Considering how pathetic and futile Perry’s campaign was, if that were true it was probably because God wanted to whack him upside the head to rid him of his arrogant self-righteousness. If so, I am afraid it likely failed.

Which brings us to Doug Mastriano, current candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania. He has run an odd campaign Eschewing broad based support, he has focused his efforts on energizing his core constituents. This strategy won him the Republican nomination, but time will tell if it can succeed on a state-wide basis.

Part of this strategy are livestream Facebook chats. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mastriano uses these chats to frame himself as knowing God’s will. He asserts that he and his followers are the on the side of righteousness while his opponents are not. At a recent rally Mastriano was quoted as saying “God called us to run for office…. You get the call of God, you got to do it…. We have the power of God with us…. We have Jesus Christ that we’re serving here. He’s guiding and directing our steps.”

Ultimately, Mastriano wants us to believe that when he speaks, he is channeling God. He knows God’s will, and God’s will is a match for his own. He knows God’s views on climate change, same-sex marriage, and the legitimacy of the 2016 Presidential election, and, amazingly, they are his views as well. There is, seemingly, no difference between Mastriano and God.

I am probably the last person who should comment on anyone’s religious beliefs. I have never been able to fully excise my Baptist upbringing, though I long ago rejected the literalism and sanctimoniousness of those early lessons. I have, at various times, leaned toward deism, embracing a humanist Jesus without all the doctrinal trappings. I have found great solace in Buddhist teachings, especially the concepts of Maya, and the need to curb desire, though to me it is more of a philosophy than a religion. I have identified myself as an agnostic and an atheist, and everything in between.

For all that, I do feel qualified to say that if there is such a thing as blasphemy, it is being unable to conceive a difference between God’s will and your own. Maybe my own religious travails have sensitized me to such claims of omnipotence. Be that as it may, to the extent there is religious truth the contours and depths of that truth is a mystery. Someone can legitimately say that they believe X or Y doctrine, but to claim full assurance of that doctrine, and to assert that you know it is true because God, however conceived, has told you that it is true, is heresy of the grossest kind.

I am willing to forgive this doctrinal arrogance in priests, imams and other religious leaders. It is their job to impart the parameters of their denominations, and they would not last long if they stood before their congregations and said the equivalent of “Gee, I kind of think this is true”. I am also willing to overlook this presumptiveness by those in the proverbial pews. Most are looking more for solace and some sense of meaning in life. Few really are interested in putting their beliefs under a microscope. There is nothing wrong with that.

However, I cannot absolve this pretention in those that want to govern. Someone who does not recognize the difference between their pronouncements and those of whatever God they worship will act with an imperiousness that is antithetical to any notion of democratic, or even human, ideals. After all, if you and God are simpatico, of what import are us mere mortals.

I return to Lincoln, and one of his less celebrated pronouncements. Amid the war, Lincoln was challenged by Horace Greeley, a prominent journalist, for not doing enough to end slavery. In response, Lincoln said: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by feeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that”.

Lincoln was roundly criticized at the time for his seeming ambivalence about slavery. Even now, such willingness to acquiesce to human bondage seems callous, at best. There is no doubt that Lincoln abhorred slavery, and wished it gone. However, he saw his duty as upholding the Constitution, and the Constitution embraced slavery. When there was a conflict between the Constitution and his personal beliefs, the Constitution prevailed, rightly or wrongly.

There is little doubt in my mind that those who cannot differentiate between their own intentions and God’s will quickly jettison the Constitution, duly passed laws and any and other constraints if they clash with their personal beliefs. After all, what are such man-made decrees compared to God’s, and how convenient that God sees it my way.           

One of my college compatriots passed away this week. During the three years that we overlapped at the University of South Carolina John Eargle, affectionally known as Ogre, became one of my closest friends. He was a fellow sousaphone player, introduced me to the Clariosophic Literary and Debating Society, a collection of hippies and misfits who took over an institution more than 170 years old, was a founder of The Motley Corner, our underground tuba newspaper, and shared an apartment with me for a semester.

More than all the intersections, John was someone I could sit down and talk to for hours on end. We didn’t have cell phones and the internet to distract us, so instead time was spent listening to album after album (who’s turn was it to flip the record?) and endlessly pontificating with absolute certainty on any topic that came to mind, as only college students can do. (Illicit substances might have helped the process. My mind is fuzzy on that).

John was an iconoclast, in the true sense of the word. He brought a sideways view to almost everything he did. His unwillingness to simply accept norms helped open the world to a sheltered punk from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, far from home. More importantly, he always approached everything with a heart as big as the state of South Carolina.          

I met up with John last October for the first time in probably 30 years. After a few moments of an awkward feeling out (are you still the same person?), we settled into a comfort zone that can only be reached between people who know each other well. Whenever that happens it is incredibly rewarding. It’s a reminder that even with all the curves life throws at you there is a continuing thread, and that is reassuring.

The course of the conversation was not surprising. What have you been doing with yourself? Tell me about your family. Where has life taken you? Those are not topics I delve into with just anyone, at least not deeply. But with John it was not only easy – it was natural to lay out the twists and turns life had dealt, both good and bad. Like a continuation of a conversation that we began years ago. I hope that John felt the same way.

There was also the requisite reminiscing. The trips to the trestle, a railroad bridge over the Congaree River, to watch Amtrak trains whiz by at 70 miles an hour, one of those incredibly stupid things you do when you’re 19 and think yourself invincible. The band trips to place like Atlanta and New Orleans, where John ended up settling after college. Hanging out at the Golden Spur, or Don’s Music and Marching Society.

And John told me about his cancer. While I didn’t fully understand the ins and outs of his illness, it was clear that it was serious. Yet, he seemed so optimistic and upbeat that I couldn’t help but walk away feeling that he would beat it, and that I would have the chance to see him again. Of course, that was the easy and convenient way to feel. You would think that by now I would know that life is just not that simple.

I do not want this to be an outlet for my inner Sammy Maudlin. John would hate that. After all, most of what we did was filled with unrestrained and continuous laughter. (Maybe illicit substances helped there as well. Again, I cannot recall). I don’t know for sure what John thought about his impending death, but from what I saw last October, my guess is that he faced it with all the equanimity and positivity he could muster.

The loss of old friends is one of the most painful inevitabilities of life. It is always filled with a sense of regret. Could I really say that someone was a close friend if I hadn’t seen them in forever? Why wasn’t I better about staying in touch? How many opportunities did I miss to reconnect and expand on the bonds that held over so many years?

While all those questions are haunting, we must face another inevitability of life. We are going to drift away from many who mean so much to us. Just living on a day-to-day basis is so consuming that few of us have the energy to continually reach out, as much as we would like to. While I hate it, I have had to accept that as a given. I wish it were different. I take baby steps now and then to ameliorate that reality, but it will never be enough.

The trick is to savor the connections you can maintain, even if they are not everything you would want. While Facebook can be maddening, and rife with the potential for abuse, at least it is a thin line to people who might otherwise be forgotten. Zoom calls, like the one begun with my law school friends during the pandemic, are a pale reflection of sitting down face to face but are also a solid bridge to people I would be lucky to see once in a blue moon. Text messages during a Carolina game may be a poor way to communicate, but they can also be a way to recreate the inane non-stop banter that can be so much fun.

So, here’s to you Ogre. It should have been more, but it’s just not that easy. You are gone, but by no means forgotten.

The news of the Indonesian soccer deaths has been horrible. Police cars overturned and set afire. People beaten by police with sticks and shields. Countless others teargassed, seemingly indiscriminately. 125 people dead. Another red-letter day in the annals of sports.

The interesting thing is that supporters of the opposing team, which won the contest, had already been banned from the stadium pre-match, so the conflagration was not caused by fights between rival fans. Nor was it caused by controversial calls. Instead, it was the anger of the home team fans at losing a game, the first loss against this rival on the home pitch in 23 years. Fans flooded the field after the game ended to demand of team management an explanation for the loss. Things deteriorated from there.

I have attested already to my love of sports in this blog numerous times. I am an addict. I turn to the sports page first thing every morning, even though I generally know the outcomes of the games already. I can’t turn off the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers or Eagles, no matter how bad it gets. But I often wonder whether it wouldn’t be for the good of humanity if we just scrapped the whole mess.

For way too many people the success of their favorite sports team becomes a substitute for success in their own life. It’s not just a matter of living and dying with each interception, or goal, but of investing the games with a mystical quality that transcends the players. It becomes a validation, or refutation, of their own existence.

I don’t want to overstate this. Hundreds of contests go forward every day without incident. Fans generally restrain themselves and save their anger for talk radio and social media. However, you get this sense that a more vociferous outbreak is brewing with every loss and disappointment.

The players feed this win at all costs mentality, but with them it makes sense. They would not have gotten where they are unless they had a burning competitiveness. We fans revel in the plays on the field, many of which look effortless, but often forget the hours of practice necessary to make those plays. Those who are unwilling to invest those hours rarely make it, no matter how naturally talented they might be. That drive is what makes them what they are. And yet, we still often see incredible graciousness in loss from them.        

Sports broadcasting takes its cues from the players and perpetuates this win or die attitude. Too many pundits give the impression that unless a team or player prevails in the Super Bowl, or the World Series, they are failures to be derided and mocked. I cringe whenever some talking head quotes Vince Lombardi saying that “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”. No Vinnie, you’re wrong.  

Accepting a loss is one of the most important lessons sports teaches. We do not live in a world where anyone wins all the time. And though it may be banal and cliché, it is also true that the true judge of character is how you bounce back from those losses. There is no shame in fuming about a loss, or throwing a quick tantrum in frustration, but if petulance is all you learn from the experience, then you have trapped yourself in an adolescent world that defies reality.

I don’t think that there is any surprise that the incident in Indonesia was sparked by fans who had not lost on the home pitch in 23 years. Just like a child allowed to win every game, these fans became spoiled. A win wasn’t something to celebrate, but their due in life. The game itself became superfluous, as long as it did not end in a loss. When the inevitable happened, they could not take it.

My favorite moment in my kids long and inglorious sports careers came at a little league game. Ny son’s team was up big early, but blew the lead because they were, you know, kids. After the game their coach gathered them for a talk and asked them how it felt being up by that many runs, then lose the game. One kid, God bless his soul, responded “I feel pretty good”. The coach turned red in the face, gritted his teeth and spit out, “This should be tearing you apart inside.” The kids looked at him like he was out of his mind. Me? I gained faith in the younger generation.

Being a Philadelphia sports fan, I have had more than my share of losing. And while we like to think of ourselves as unique in that respect, we aren’t. The sports world is littered with losers. Ask your friends in Cleveland or Buffalo (or two dozen other cities) about that. The nice thing is that when the wins do come, they taste that much sweeter (like when your team scores 6 runs in the 9^th inning of a playoff game).

The actions of the police in Indonesia were criminal. The actions of the fans that stormed the field looking for a scapegoat to assuage their lost identity were pathetic. Maybe they were used to winning, but, in life, they were losers just the same. Maybe a strong dose of disappointment would force them to finally grow up.     

P.S. Another sports story caught my eye this weekend, one not as tragic, but just as maddening in its own way. Two professional fishermen apparently cheated in the Lake Erie Walleye Trail fishing tournament by loading their catch with lead weights, hidden by frozen fish filets. While fishing lends itself to whoppers about the one that got away, it’s just not a sport you expect this kind of chicanery. Then again, the two cheaters might just throw up their hands and quote Vince – “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”.

After a brief interlude communing with the Queen, it is time to return to the trauma of moving. I have not yet reached the point of catharsis. I want to rid my psyche of the angst which was my constant companion for four months. (I have tried primal scream therapy, usually while watching the Phillies, but it just doesn’t cut it). So on to phase two.

Once we made the decision to move, we were hit over the head with the realization that we had too much stuff. Our friendly neighborhood realtor spent two minutes complementing us on our house, before making clear that we had to get rid of at least a third of what we owned before we could even think of showing it to any prospective buyer. There was a whiff of condescension that led me to wonder how we ever had the boldness to let anyone into our home.

Looking with new minimalist eyes, I began to wonder whether I had thrown out anything over the last 26 years. I remember taking the trash cans to the curb every week, but were they empty? Did I just throw our accumulated detritus into the garage? How else can you explain my inability to walk from one side of a two-car garage to the other without taking a detour outside?

Frankly, if it was just rubbish it would not be a problem. Pile it up and toss it!!!! However, as I started to tunnel through the rubble, I realized that it wouldn’t be that simple. Could I admit that my softball days were over and give away my equipment? I know that I pulled two hamstrings last time I tried to play, but what if I find a senior’s league that will let me walk around the bases? Aren’t we going to need that ice bucket we used three or four times in the last 20 years? Decisions, decisions.

Of course, that was the easy stuff. After a moment of misplaced nostalgia, I realized that I was unlikely to ever swing a bat again. If caution is thrown to the wind, and I do play, someone else will have a bat I can use (my hamstrings ache just thinking about it). And who uses ice buckets anymore anyway?

After concluding that 90% of the garage was expendable, I waded into the house itself. I immediately realized that we had been living in clutter for years. There were odd pieces of furniture that we took for granted, that did nothing more than take up space. There were holiday decorations stuffed in closets. There was shelf after shelf of pre-school art projects, 3^rd grade report cards, class pictures (ten copies each), faded college souvenirs and mementos from trips I can hardly remember. I realized that I had to go room by room, closet by closet, nook by nook, cranny by cranny (can a cranny exist without a nook?). I told myself that I had to be willing to purge. I told myself that I had to be ruthless. And then I had to admit that I am nothing more than a softie.  

That admission was freeing. I didn’t have to toss the Scottie dog ashtray my father had in his office (heaven knows why), or the back issues of my underground tuba newspaper, or the Sunshine Award given to one son in his only year of football (granted, not an award that evokes hard-nosed gridiron play). I just had to sort and organize these treasures. Oh, joy!!!!

Going through the accumulation of 26 years opened doors to a flood of memories. Most of them good, some not so. I would find myself sitting in the middle of a room surrounded by postcards, random pictures and assorted souvenirs for hours on end. At some point I had to say enough was enough and put things into boxes for later ruminating.

And then there were the books. Hundreds of them piled on bookshelves in almost every room. I love books. The thought of disposing of these old friends was almost unthinkable. Yet I knew that many of these books had to go. Not out of a Marie Kondo conviction that books are useless clutter, but out of a (in retrospect misplaced) notion that the books would not fit in our new place. With every box that went to Green Drop a little bit of me died (I know that’s hyperbole of the grossest kind, but if Kondo can hate on books, I can revere them).  

Slowly, but surely, we uncluttered, or so I thought. What I came to realize is that it’s never enough. The prevailing wisdom is that people want to project themselves in a house, so no evidence of the current owners should be seen. No pictures. No mementos. As little on walls as possible. In other words, sterility.

I just don’t get it. Who wants to live in a sterile home? Don’t people want to see evidence of life? Don’t they want to see how others made this box a home, even if their choices would be different? I know that I do, but then maybe I just don’t have enough imagination to put myself into a blank space. So round 2 (or was it 3, or 4) of the clean-up commenced.

Finally, it is time to put out the For Sale sign, and I will leave things there, for now. I can’t say the angst has been eradicated, but I do feel better. And that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Isn’t it?