Vanity, Vanity, it is all Vanity! It sure seems to be

“You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you”—vanity, vanity—is it all VANITY?

“They (you) can dish it out but you can’t take it”

That song by Carly Simon is in harmony with Ecclesiastes.  When I look on all cultures secular and religious, it is all too often centered on we human beings as individuals—on me.  It is either about being successful in life, looking good or saving my own butt from an eternal hell.  It is all about me, my, mine.  It’s not about relationships—with others or with anything beyond us out there.  It is not about the collective. It so often is about the self-righteous me.  Surprise mike (not capitalized purposefully), you are not the center of the universe. 

All this floods my mind this morning.  With the vitriol, meanness and distortions of truth in media, particularly social media, I’ve weened myself off it almost totally.  So Kirk was not someone I knew much about.  He burst into my life the day I’d got a call from a friend who lives across the street from the high school in Evergreen, Colorado.  All hell had broken loose there, the town was on lock down and for the moment Wes needed a listening ear.  We were on our recent road trip.  I was in the museum at Gouldings in Monument Valley when his call came. When we got to Santa Fe we tried to find out more about Evergreen only to discover media was all about Kirk. The days following, as with all of us, I learned more about him.  I read, I heard the hateful, pompous statements he made.

There are different gods out there whether you believe it or not—because the god this guy speaks of is not the One I know.  Kirk’s actions and tongue does not square with the Jesus I’ve come to experience.  Yet the firestorm of defense this week has been even more unsettling.  But then, stepping back, we’ve been living with this style of rhetoric for a good while, Kirk death just brought it to head (or the shooter did).  I feel for Kirk’s children and the legacy they will bear, I pray for their comfort and clarity as they live beyond all this. 

The rhetoric of name calling, disparaging other individuals for whatever reason is ungodly.  For sure it isn’t easy to stay silent when I am being attacked for whatever reason.  I want to defend myself. But I’ve had enough experiences to know that to argue with the unfounded attacks that come is a waste of breath.  To respond to the unreasonable is craziness.  When there is no reason, or desire for reason, silence is the place to go.  

To be branded a pussy, a weakling, a bleeding heart, a weirdo, queer—and now a terrorist for what you believe—or more importantly, who you are—is a tough go.  The macho, bravado power culture has been around forever.  One of their favorite tactics is personal attacks which too often historically has lead to ethnic ‘cleansing’, hangings and all sorts of inhumanity towards mankind.  

If you’ve lived long enough and been in high school, we have the stereotype of the captain of the football team who links up, even marries the lead cheerleader.  So often these two have lived their short lives for the accolades of others often resulting in a shallowness, a shell of a person.  Going to a class reunion twenty years later, he is bald with a paunch.  She is divorced, pudgy living for Botox and facial creams.  The ‘successful’ (at least in the capitalist American culture) were the geeks back in high school.  Twenty years later, they are happily married, drive the nice cars and are business if not corporate heads.  I know all that is a stereotype—but that is the reason we have stereotypes. There are patterns. 

Anyone who has been married for a few hours knows that you’ve got to learn to deal with differences.  We learn to love beyond many things.  We may not have the same parenting styles—rarely do, but it doesn’t mean I love my partner any less.  Then there are the times with a partner ‘carries on’ with someone else either emotionally or physically.  In the conservative culture I had clients who came in claiming ‘now I have a biblical reason to divorce!’.  My response, “Yes, but do you know the high percentage of marriages that weathered such times and stayed married?”  Forgiveness is a key to living well—or at least with any sense of peace.  Life, if you are listening, teaches us what love really is.  Culturally it is a word tossed around everywhere,  Subaru is love don’t you know?  I get messages daily from total strangers calling me by my first name like we are close friends trying to sell me anything, everything.  So many out there want in my mind, my wallet or my pants (all the sexualized marketing).  Commercials do the same appealing to my sense of—my desire for—family. Every human being longs to be cared for, to be loved, or as Greg Boyle says, ‘to be cherished’.  

Hate speech, hate action is the opposite.  Even a bad example though is an example—of how not to do it.  

Then, this Jesus I claim does remind me, “Mike, they persecuted me, they are likely to persecute you”.  “But Jesus, hey, I want people to like me not hate me for my skin color, my ethic group, my beliefs, my gender or sexual preference”.  Jesus quietly taps me on the shoulder reminding me I am a romantic.  I am a dreamer of what he calls that kingdom to come—but it is to come.  

I do believe in it, but we are not there now. No shit Sherlock. 

In the mean time, there is a mountain of meanness, of hate, of evil and wickedness to plow through.  Some days, most days, silence is the best choice while I pause to care for my wounds, regroup and regain strength.  My strength comes from a realm beyond this present reality—a reality Richard Rohr says I must learn to forgive.  Richard, you are asking an awful lot—yet I know Jesus is asking me to do the same. 

Resist is a common word right now—for me it is more about resisting sinking to a mindless level of argument, resisting confrontation that is violent at least with language and thought—even in my own head.  Michelle Obama’s suggestion fits, “When they go low, we go high”.  

And high is the kingdom to come—the already but the not yet.  In this I find some comfort, a peace beyond this current realm.  

So, when in doubt what to do, where to go in your own head?  Go silent, at least a few moments.  The old adage ‘count to ten’ comes to mind suggesting a similar tactic.  My inner voice then offers guidance—or has a chance to do so if I can hear it over the noise of living. 

Letting emotions be, then letting them go, not letting them drive.  

A constantly repeated lesson over a lifetime.

God help me, help us all.