To me, I try to compensate for a lack of ability to do good things by joining causes and offering support to those who can do good because good works are a key part to the road to Heaven, however it is you define Heaven (I'm not sure I believe in God, having watched His handiwork up close for almost 57 years and we are quite the piece of work, ain't we? But the older I've gotten the more convinced I am becoming that if there is a Deity, He/She will rescue/reward us because S/He loves us, not through anything we've done to 'earn' salvation).
So much for my impersonation of Fulton Sheen--not really sure where I wanted to go and sorry about that detour. I signed up a couple of weeks ago here in CT for a legislative initiative to expand the applications to those who might qualify for 'family leave'. Having lived in other people's countries for a long time, I can tell you we are very backwards on this and not especially kind to one another (or ourselves). The electronic lobbying effort seems to be aimed at heightening awareness and attempting persuasion and as such appeals to me as 'non-partisan', and lacking in ideology.
I'm not a big fan of the definite article. Tell me "I have found a way" and I'll listen to you with more of an open mind than if you tell me "I have found the way." It's not that I don't believe you, but I don't, and your insistence despite my feelings of unease will not persuade me. It's how I am.
I mention that because starting yesterday for reasons that their strat comms guys (strategic communications specialists) think are the 'right moments', the lobbying groups have decided to try to saddle the public resentment about the stimulus money that's been given to some companies and that, seemingly, they will use for bonuses. You've read about it, and seen the news reports and heard the voice bytes from 'the person in the street' and yeah, I get it except, I don't all at the same time.
About the only thing in the New Testament I remember fifty years after my First Holy Communion is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard and how all day long the owner hires people to harvest grapes and at the end of the day, it turns out, he pays everyone the same wage--those who were there from dawn until dusk and those who arrived an hour before quitting time. There's much mumbling and disquiet and unhappiness even as the vineyard owner explains that he set the arrangements and everyone agreed to them and what he pays each of those who toiled in his vineyard is between the two of them.
That's the God that I was looking for as I opened these email exhortations from folks wanting me to come on a bus ride this Sunday from Hartford to see all the fancy houses where many who are receiving the bonuses from the bailout money money all live. Maybe we'll get lucky and their families will be on the front lawns and we can jeer them, or perhaps throw things at them. That'll sure fix everything, won't it? And you know the best part? Those people are just awful-all of us on the bus agree-and it feels so good to pick on those so deserving. That one has nothing to do with the other is just me being rude when I point it out.
That in the less than four weeks I've been a member of these lobbying groups, we could have evolved so rapidly into a Correctness Posse and Thought Police is very sad. I can do nothing to stop these people except embarrass them by running away and so I've quit them, right after offering them a hearty, heaping serving of warm invective because I'm a giving kind of a guy. Meanwhile there are still so many in the vineyard, doing what they can and where they can. Perhaps the self-righteous among us should go tell them alcohol isn't good for them.
-bill kenny
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