The Way Things Appear at the Moment.

"To watch an American on a beach or crowding into a subway, or buying a theater ticket, or sitting at home with his radio on, tells you something about one aspect of the American character: the capacity to withstand a great deal of outside interference, so to speak; a willing acceptance of frenzy which though it's never self-conscious, amounts o a willingness to let other people have and assert their own lively, and even offensive, character. They are a tough race in this."
Alistair Cooke

 “The world divorced from the God who created and redeemed it inevitably comes to a bad end. It’s on the wrong side of the only history that finally matters.”  Francis Cardinal George

  "I am for socialism, disarmament, and, ultimately, for abolishing the state itself... I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth." Communism is the goal. Roger Baldwin - Founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 

Alister Cooker saw Americans as they are meant to be.

Francis Cardinal George watched Americans turn from the things that made them tough.

Roger Baldwin planned where we now find ourselves in 1931 with the founding of the ACLU.

Old Roger had plenty of help from earnest people who despise the American miracle, but mostly from legions of cowardly and lazy opportunists. 

A Nation built upon energy and industry of individuals is quite a miracle.  Miracles are useless without faith.  

My family came to America at the very turn of the American Century.  Work in the Stockyards of Chicago, or 'cook for the rich Yanks,'  were the gender-specific options. Work they did. Between 1904, Larry Hickey and Nora Sullivan Hickey of County Kerry, Ireland, met, married and parented thirteen children. 

Larry and Nora moved from the neighborhoods adjoining the Great Stockyards to Lake Township in Chicago and built large two story home at 7535 S. Marshfield Avenue in the Highlands of Gresham.   

They made a great life for themselves, their children and their grandchildren during the labor wars of the 1920's, the Depression, World War Two when four of their seven sons went overseas and through the prosperous 1950's, the self-conscious 1960's and into the bizarre 1970's when the American Century began to peel off its clothing in public - Roe v.Wade, credit card economics, Jimmy Carter's apologetic Presidency and the birth of identity politics.

Mercifully, Nora and Larry went home to Christ, before this Nation began its three decades of public streaking. 

Naked America was told to pull up its britches in 1980 and began to get serious about itself, but then wandered off with the Bush Boys and Bubba to even more exercises of fragile individualism.

I was born in 1952 and had no part in getting America out of the Depression, stopping tyranny, or building our standard of living.  However, I was rooted in the faith and values that respect a man's right to a fair wage in union with his fellows and not to use those fellows to camouflage his sloth on the job and to honor my obligations to my wife and children. I must go to work.

In order be an effective worker, I had to take my job as seriously as a surgeon, an electrician, or a cop.  I had better be good at my job.  Know my stuff.  I did and I do. 

I have taught  hundreds of young people, via literature, history and philosophy,  to honor our civilization and America's powerful contribution to Western Civilization and to respect the traditions that allow people to come from Morocco and own a thriving business along with the Polish, African American, Italian, Mexican,Jewish,  Irish, Norwegian, Swedish and Lithuanian Americans in hot economic competition with them. 

At this moment, I am somewhat retired.  I substitute teach.  My children are grown and making their way in the world. 

Now, nearly through the second decade of the New Millennium, we are a nation divided and sensitive to the point of psychosis. 

Some people say we have evolved. Most insist that we need to get to Roger Baldwin's end-game.

As a teacher, this saddens me. As a parent this frightens me .  As a grandfather, I have faith that maybe my kids will snap us all out of it.  

Today's gospel cheers me a bit.  It reminded me of the greatest priest I have ever known, Francis Cardinal George.  This gospel recounts the pop quiz teacher Jesus gave to his disciples near Caesaria Philippi

"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply,"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said to him in reply,"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter,and upon this rock I will build my church,and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Maybe we will be tough again. Tough enough to be kind and considerate of others without legislation, slogans, marches, or the study of poll numbers.