Louis CK has a bit he calls “Of Course, but Maybe.” I’m about to borrow that bit. I don't own any rights to Louis' jokes, or his image. I use his structure, of course, as an homage to the great comedian, but maybe to talk a little, too, about Protest, Trump and the State of
the Nation. So here’s history’s
most unfunny description of a joke:
Louis CK starts out saying “Of course, I have this thing that I believe.” He holds his non-mic hand high, to show this
is the ideal. Then he lowers that hand. “And
then there’s a thing that challenges that ideal” and he gives a funny
example. That’s the whole, ingenious
thing: he says “of course,” lifts his hand, and makes a point, then “but maybe”
and he lowers it, makes a distasteful point challenging the ideal.
For me, it goes like this: For
one thing, of course it’s important that the government’s decisions represent
God’s will. Of course that’s the goal of
our nation’s leaders. What’s legal represents what’s morally right. In the issues of abortion, and drug
use, we see this thinking clearly. Of
course, I agree, and believe that abortion is bad. I agree with the police officer who
came to my elementary school class to tell me drugs are bad.
For another thing, of course the decisions of the government represent
the will of the people. Of course I vote for people I agree with, so does
everybody else, and those representatives enflesh those perspectives in law. Of course.
But maybe, for one thing,
deciding something bad is illegal isn’t reason enough to do the good. Abortion was illegal when Dorothy Day
procured one: that meant, for the most part, that the safety of her back-alley
procedure could not be legally guaranteed.
The same “War on Drugs” that deemed the cash cows of alcohol and tobacco
“legal” later brought charges against the officer who’d visited my elementary
school classroom. She, herself, had been
caught dealing--harder drugs, but dealing nonetheless. Maybe, when people in power calling non-conformity illegal, it doesn't necessarily accomplish God's ends.
And maybe, for another
thing, the majority doesn’t rule. Maybe
political machines use the electoral college to elect a candidate apart from the popular
mandate. Maybe that leader uses
Executive Orders to circumvent the need for bipartisan cooperation. And maybe he gets petty on twitter to blow
smoke in the faces of the American people while his party pushes through policy
that benefits the same oligarchy of cracker-ass rich folks.
Of course, violence is bad. Between
the first and second drafts of this post, a nutjob (who, like me, voted for
Bernie Sanders) shot up a congressional baseball practice. Bernie condemned it strongly, and I echo that
condemnation: violence is never an acceptable way to voice dissent, and has no
place in mature discourse.
But maybe—if, on the campaign trail, the candidate installed by the
electoral college openly incites his supporters to violence—if, as president,
he under-condemns violence—and if Mr. Trump neither has the mandate of, nor
represents an American majority—maybe when the crazies among his opponents
decide violence is their only recourse, it’s a little bit his fault.
Of course, when the government does something bad, protest is the
answer. Back in 2000, I learned that, at
Fort Benning in Georgia, our nation trains the military officers of Latin
American client Nations to use counter-insurgency warfare methods against their
own countries’ poor people. Over the next three years, compelled by objections of conscience, I travelled down twice to
carry signs and yell things. The first
time I was arrested for--but not charged with—trespassing, and simply told not
to return. The second time I couldn’t
even do that much. It was after 9/11 by
then, and they’d put up a big barbed wire fence. Everyone to cross it was immediately arrested
and charged. Of course, I was doing what
I should do as an American who cares.
But maybe no one is listening.
In 2002, I stood at Fort Benning’s barbed-wire fence. The protesters had bullhorns and were yelling
about how president Bush was an idiot.
The military blared “Stars and Stripes Forever” from the other
side. The volley of noise simply passed
back and forth over the barbed wire. The
protester’s rage, the military’s refusal to listen—both of these portrayed something
I found in my own heart. My own part in
the corporate woundedness, I realized, was all I could hope to fix. Two years later, I joined the monastery, to
struggle against my own selfishness and seek a remedy. Though I didn’t remain a monk, I discovered
tools in the monastery that effectively began those processes: both the
getting-honest and the healing.
In pacifist circles, I heard a story that’s important. To paraphrase: A young person took a week-long, immersive
service trip, into a situation of immense poverty. After that week, he went to the program
director and said “This is awful. Of
course, we’ve gotta do something about it.”
The program director cracked a tired, kind smile and said “Maybe
what’s important is just to let it break your heart.” As a protester, with my fist lifted in the
air, I spent a lot of time agitating. As
a monk, I spent a lot of time noticing how I talked too much, and talked with
my hands, when I’m agitated. Psalm 51
says “a broken, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn.” It’s in brokenness that the protester and the
enlisted man can listen to each other.
It’s in brokenness that the unresponsive president and his angry
citizens are the same. It’s in
brokenness that I, a shitty contemplative, am finding a way to encounter all
this. I sit down more often these days,
and listen. More often, these days, my
hands come to rest in my lap.
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