Re-thinking the American Dream (again)
Hmmm. Lots of medical stuff with my daughter, sickness, and the horrific hurricane have all sobered me up. I am now seeing life in a different light. While I still want to save the world, the widespread, immediate human suffering all around me is too great. Small wonder we humans can't focus on long-term solutions — we are too busy getting bopped on the head with problems, and rather than developing an eventual solution we respond to the immediate need instead. Sometimes we have too.
So, I have given what I can to the Red Cross and plan to give more. I also signed up to be a Red Cross volunteer, and am waiting to hear back. The suffering and magnitude of the hurricane tragedy has remained on my mind day and night.
What has really hit home to me is that your life doesn't really mean anything until you are presented with these special opportunities to help. If you are not helping humans, other living things, or the Planet, then you are not contributing to the greater cause. Now, I realize that many people will never be able to "give back" because their own situations are difficult. However, I saw a lot of overweight guys drinking beer at my first tennis match today, and, well, maybe there's something more to life than a good burp.
Strangely, there's things inside me that just build up, snap, make me angry, or whatever. And suddenly I see my life going in a whole new direction, usually after some big epiphany.
One thing for certain is that if you want to "give back," a religious organization may not be most efficient. I have found with churches that almost all resources go toward perpetuating the organization. And around here they are always fighting and splitting off into more small churches, and there is a great duplication of resources. I'm not very impressed.
So, really, we all need to find the organization of our choice that is efficient and can get help to good causes fast. This business of forcing starving people to pray before getting their food is for the birds (I won't mention the relief organization that does that). All I'll say is that I'm pretty damn sure that God knows the starving people are thankful for the food, and he doesn't need to hear a 20-minute recited prayer before some emaciated child can have a bite to eat.
To the victims of Hurricane Katrina, I grieve deeply. The stories of people drowning in their attics is just too much. We want our lives to be like the Leave it to Beaver show, but then things like 9/11, the tsunami, the hurricane, and the recent gas panic serve to remind us that this whole life thing can completely fall apart in an instant.
I sometimes think about the poor folks in history who had comfy lives, nice villages, and then along would come Vikings or Mongols or some other enemy to wipe them all out. They may have had a nice community for a hundred years, and then, in an instant, all gone.
For those of you who cling to the dream of "American Utopia," maybe that's the wrong thing to cling to. Maybe the whole dream is a big lie. Maybe the American Dream really is a horrible nightmare, and we just don't know it. What will happen as our country's population continues to skyrocket and oil becomes more scarce? Our whole economy depends on cheap oil, so what will happen? I know the religious conservative types will scream in my face, "God will take care of it. He has a plan!" And they will scream that over and over until they are hoarse. But these are the same people who tell me that the world was created in seven days, so I'm thinking there is a credibility issue here.
The Yellow Canary
"Here in America everything is bought and sold, you can get anything for little bits of gold. We'll rape the earth and ruin the air, cut down every tree from here to there."
So, I have given what I can to the Red Cross and plan to give more. I also signed up to be a Red Cross volunteer, and am waiting to hear back. The suffering and magnitude of the hurricane tragedy has remained on my mind day and night.
What has really hit home to me is that your life doesn't really mean anything until you are presented with these special opportunities to help. If you are not helping humans, other living things, or the Planet, then you are not contributing to the greater cause. Now, I realize that many people will never be able to "give back" because their own situations are difficult. However, I saw a lot of overweight guys drinking beer at my first tennis match today, and, well, maybe there's something more to life than a good burp.
Strangely, there's things inside me that just build up, snap, make me angry, or whatever. And suddenly I see my life going in a whole new direction, usually after some big epiphany.
One thing for certain is that if you want to "give back," a religious organization may not be most efficient. I have found with churches that almost all resources go toward perpetuating the organization. And around here they are always fighting and splitting off into more small churches, and there is a great duplication of resources. I'm not very impressed.
So, really, we all need to find the organization of our choice that is efficient and can get help to good causes fast. This business of forcing starving people to pray before getting their food is for the birds (I won't mention the relief organization that does that). All I'll say is that I'm pretty damn sure that God knows the starving people are thankful for the food, and he doesn't need to hear a 20-minute recited prayer before some emaciated child can have a bite to eat.
To the victims of Hurricane Katrina, I grieve deeply. The stories of people drowning in their attics is just too much. We want our lives to be like the Leave it to Beaver show, but then things like 9/11, the tsunami, the hurricane, and the recent gas panic serve to remind us that this whole life thing can completely fall apart in an instant.
I sometimes think about the poor folks in history who had comfy lives, nice villages, and then along would come Vikings or Mongols or some other enemy to wipe them all out. They may have had a nice community for a hundred years, and then, in an instant, all gone.
For those of you who cling to the dream of "American Utopia," maybe that's the wrong thing to cling to. Maybe the whole dream is a big lie. Maybe the American Dream really is a horrible nightmare, and we just don't know it. What will happen as our country's population continues to skyrocket and oil becomes more scarce? Our whole economy depends on cheap oil, so what will happen? I know the religious conservative types will scream in my face, "God will take care of it. He has a plan!" And they will scream that over and over until they are hoarse. But these are the same people who tell me that the world was created in seven days, so I'm thinking there is a credibility issue here.
The Yellow Canary
"Here in America everything is bought and sold, you can get anything for little bits of gold. We'll rape the earth and ruin the air, cut down every tree from here to there."
-- Donna The Buffalo "America"
No comments:
Post a Comment