On Being American, On Being Displaced

Stephen Harper

To start, I’m feeling a bit melancholy as of late. I can’t quite put my hand to it …. Truth of it is I can put my hand right on it but I don’t care to talk about that. Where am I going? I finished the book Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini recently and I had a passage that affected me and I remembered the page so as to expound. Turns out I didn’t remember the page correctly and the passage is lost as is the intent behind said passage. You see I was going to use the passage to remind me of what struck me. “The mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

It’s o.k. though because there was something else that struck me. The book details the main characters life with his father in pre (Russian) war Afghanistan. First off the book is beautiful. This is the talent that elevates mere words to literature. As I traveled through the book I embraced his center. His knowing where he came from and how distinct that is from other lands, even other villages. Traditions, be they cultural or religious, really give one something to stand on. It gives one a place.

I look at the carnage that is distinctly American. We are the stuff washed up on the far shore. Assembled and stuck together with sweat, even passion. Maybe just survival. It is a land of drive thrus so we don’t have to connect. Connection is messy. When I was a child I remember McDonalds posted the number of burgers sold. Not eaten, just sold. At the point of absurdity they now just trumpet “billions and billions served”. An update of Biblical scriptures would have us numbering our offspring “as the burgers of McDonalds. Verily.

But I realized I don’t have those cultural traditions that are more than quaint. It is a thing that can hold neighbors together and it marks ones territory. Our territory is for sale. My mother’s parents were from Italy. A large Italian family that gathered continually at their home where food was piled high and bocce ball was won not so much from talent but from how susceptible an uncle was from Nonie’s dandelion wine. I was young and there were tons of us always running around the property. Poppi-Joe died. Noni passed within a couple months. I was about 7 or 8. From that point I don’t remember ever getting together as a family again save funerals and weddings. We became Americanized. Separate but equal. My father was neither Italian nor catholic and his family traditions were destitution and alcoholism neither of which he participated in. Thankfully. But what he wasn’t shown, family, was passed on. This wandering distraction of a life. Something just off center. Shallow focus.

Now, we got the money. I live in the wealthiest state in the union which means I live in the wealthiest place on the planet. Anyone that has seen my profile knows I never miss a meal. But there are curses to our blessings. And I’m not so sure we fully understand what a blessing is. Is it small wonder that our children need to bring arms to school to ….. what, even a score? Feel better about themselves? The experts are still swishing that bitter taste in their mouths before they spit out a conclusion. And just like wine it always comes down to individual taste. There is an estimated 30+ serial murderers roaming our country at present. We have the wealth.

All that distilled into this; I am American to the bone. My family gets together on Thanksgiving. Well, one of my two brothers lives in Florida and the other family are all vegetarians. Turkey be damned. Gravy too. I wish I had made up a whole slew of traditions as my kids grew up. I didn’t think to. I didn’t know I was supposed to. They should have just been there. There is nothing that kids do in my neighborhood that I did or my parents did. We are as changing as shopping malls. Even the analogies use current vernacular because nothing old sticks. Or is it metaphor? I used to know the difference.

As I ramble I do realize the spiritual aspect in all of this. Traditions can give one a sense of place. Even in a culture removed from any semblance of God their traditions solidify them. They won’t stalk each other to fulfill a fantasy and they won’t secret their dad's revolver in their knapsack for an ego boost. But then they are left with a gnawing that tradition doesn’t fulfill. There are books of these stories. Truckloads. They even make their traditions God and their burning candles give off a pleasant odor. Even if it covers something that lies decaying just under the sound structure.

The remarkable advantage of being American is that we have no tradition to edify. Our hunger, to, goes to the marrow. Why else do Americans worship all that they do? We are starving. Other cultures abate this hunger with tradition we cover ours with stuff. They set the table exactly the same every generation. But their plates are empty. We pile our paper plates high with salacious abundance all set on TV trays. And when the bite is taken we find it is a semblance of food craftily constructed of Styrofoam

I wasn’t complaining. I really wasn’t. I was just chewing on something and I had to spit it out. Some wines are bitter. Especially wine that comes in a large cardboard box with a pull out plastic spout. Our traditions are every bit as transient as our technology. Every bit as transient as Americans. Yet there are no new uncharted lands to the west. The temperate ideal of southern California is smothered in emissions and an array of highways that don’t drive us together but separate us with vast cement plains. Plains where no buffalo dare roam. America is settling. And unsettling. But in whatever grand political experiment that history has sprinkled over us like some loving compost we find someone gets plowed under. And this always creates fertile conditions for the church to grow. Totalitarianism, fascism, communism, capitalism, harperism ….. yeah, I’ve got a world domination scheme going on. That a problem? Take it up with my security officer after you sign over all your wine boxes, pal.

So, all this comes to what? I always tell my friends that there is no truth in politics. There is no truth in any of it. Save Jesus. Jesus saves. “What’s so remarkable about that steve?”. What’s remarkable is that I am sounding very much like Billy Graham. Without the clout. George Beverly Shea on my iPod. No matter how complicated no matter how fractured it all is Jesus seems to be the constant. Then and now. I’m wondering why, oh why I get so distracted? It’s nothing more than lint exposed in the sun and I’m always the cat dashing after it. Problem is; I’m no cat. How tough can it be to remember that.