PATRIOTISM – BLUBBERING AND SUBSTANCE

What was the 9-11 commemoration like in your community? Were you even there?

I have this stomach-souring feeling that, despite our blubbering about “remember this” and “remember that” and sanctimonious flag-waving, most towns’ observances were lame, vapid events to which almost nobody came.

That is certainly the way it was in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, where the airwaves and letters to the editor reek of that volatile amalgam of blustery patriotism, fundamentalist Christianity and mean-spirited conservatism.

Actually, the ceremony itself was touching and thoughtfully scheduled before the normal workday began. A courageous EMT who volunteered for the toughest duty at Ground Zero brought stirring testimony. The piper’s haunting lament of Amazing Grace choked so many of us with tears.

The headcount was underwhelming, but let the laity square that with their own consciences. I have to believe that the crowd would have been greater were local clergy and public officials more encouraging of attendance, or had at least made the effort to make their own personal appearance.

So, let me start with my own ilk:

You could count the number of clergy who were present on the fingers of one hand. Many of them had received multiple emails urging their attendance, and all of them saw – or should have seen – the repeated announcements in the newspaper and media.

Do I speak for your community when I ask, where were you, fellow clergy? I betcha that I do. And, fellow clergy, do not tell us that you were there “in spirit.” Nothing short of your physical presence would have elevated the spiritual morale of the assemblage. Nothing short of your physical presence would have ordained you as spiritual leaders and moral exemplars in a time of tortured spirit and shaken faith. Nothing short of your physical presence would have given substance to this constant yammering about living by “biblical values.”

Even if you conducted a commemoration in your own congregation – which I bet most of you did not – it certainly does not substitute for your presence at a commemoration at “ground zero” of the community, particularly for those of us who protest that the spirituality has been sucked out of our secular city.

While I am on a rant, we ought direct our ire equally toward our elected officials. In Greenville’s case, the mayor was there, likewise the mayor pro-tem and the sheriff and one associate. The non-elected public servants, the real heroes, the ones who protect you and me – police, fire, EMS – were there in significant number. The rest of the political hacks, Democratic and Republican, were absent.

So, let us say it to our elected officials: You have been invested with the public trust. Your visibility would have contributed more than a spiritual aura to the occasion; it would have conferred an example of civic duty upon it. When a community unites to celebrate, you should be there. When a city unites to mourn and pledge new resolve, you should certainly be there.

No, do not protest that you had an excused absence, either. No priority should have been higher. Whatever else that was calling you should have been deferred to unite as one – liberal and conservative – to affirm the transcendent values of liberty and patriotism, not vice versa.

And finally, a word about “patriotism.” How easy it is to chant it as an empty slogan before a hopped-up throng. How easy it is to squeeze the substance out of one of the proudest words in the American vocabulary. How could you, civic officials, not seize a quintessential opportunity to affirm your patriotism, especially you in your star-spangled neckties and omnipresent lapel pins, especially you who justify every specious action you take under the guise of patriotism?

Did you not tell us in our backward little county that a holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was “anti-patriotic”? Did you not invoke patriotism to justify school prayer and Bible reading? Did you not call social welfare programs “unpatriotic”? Dare we question not only your policies but also the real substance of your patriotism?

OK, I participated, so I can afford to wax self-righteous. For that I make no apology. I have no other way to gain your attention. If we are going to wax self-righteous, nine times out of ten it should be over matters of substance. But, that one remaining time out of ten, we dare do it over important symbolism, the kind of symbolism that could go so far to unite woefully disunited communities and spark spirit in places that too often seems so devoid of spirit.

So much for our recollection of treachery and valor. The months ahead will afford many other civic opportunities to make amends. Where will you be?