Everything Old Is New Again

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Born 10/2/1869

How bold for a man of peace to speak this way. Not really. Peaceful action isn’t always cradled in peaceful words. 140 years after his birth, Gandhi’s words have a particular sting to them. it reminds me of his response to the question of Western civilization, “What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.” Ouch. For some people, them’s fightin’ words. How dare anyone, especially a “ferner”, speak ill of the good ole U-S of A?

Check this out: “Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.” Oh, man. Listen to this: “That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.” Yeesh. If those troubled you, take a gander at this gem: “Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS -- our inferior one varies with the place.”

By the way, all of the quotes in that last paragraph are from Thomas Paine, one of the fathers of our country. His brilliant work, “Common Sense”, ushered in the American revolution.

We have degenerated into a frothing-at-the-mouth, hyperbolic mass of jingoists and hate-filled Bible-thumping freaks. People are saying the most horrible things I’ve ever heard this side of the Holocaust, and the only thing that troubles me more than what they say is the fact that they say them so blithely. We make “A Modest Proposal” seem quaint by comparison.

Let’s take a collective cleansing breath and exhale the hatred. Our hatred of one another is spawned by fear. Our fear is spawned by the endless Hatfield-McCoy distinctions we make. We make distinctions because we think we’re different. We’re not. In all of human existence, there are virtually no distinctions in DNA. Accommodations for climate and geographical realities, along with typical variances among species has lead to different skin tones and facial configurations. These are superficial and ultimately meaningless.

I’d rather think the way Abraham Lincoln did on March 4, 1861, when he concluded his inaugural address with the following:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”