Duty

I was raised to care about people.  

First it was tending little sisters and brothers, but by the time I was in the 4th grade, I hung around my classroom after school to see if there was anything I could do.  That’s when I learned how to wash a blackboard such that no chalk residue was left on the slate.  Sometimes it took a couple of buckets of water, but it was a point of pride for me.  Clean boards = good boy. 

I suppose the warm & fuzzies a guy got from hanging around after school weren’t necessarily about caring for teachers.  Surely other needs were being met in those interactions.  Still, I’ve wanted to do my part to help folks for most of my life.

One of the high school clubs I helped run at Carroll High School was Backyard Peace Corps.  Named for the international service operation started by John F. Kennedy, Backyard Peace Corps was focused on local social justice issues and providing service around school.   For a time we were bussed to Ruskin Elementary one afternoon a week to tutor 6th graders.  Some of my group spent more than a few Saturday mornings at the Dakota Street Center hanging out with kids and doing small tasks.  I think we felt like we were making a difference.  It was the 60s, for pete’s sake.

I was mostly concerned with myself during college, but got back into service as an adult.  Served on various Audubon boards for over twenty years, done much at churches I’ve attended, coached a few teams my kids were on, and organized two rehab expeditions to post-Katrina New Orleans.  Walked door-to-door with election information a handful of times, too.

Which brings me to this duty idea.  I’m more comfortable calling it a commission, actually, and when it comes to my mind, it is almost always framed in Christian terms:  the Christian commission to help brothers and sisters, whether they are hungry, or sick, or naked, or homeless, or in prison, or just kids.  Whatever we do for them we do for God, we have been taught.  Works for me.  

Somewhere in that commission is where I find my interest in government, too, I think.  It’s always been my impression that folks who get into government do so to serve the people.  What is best for our fair city?  Our country?  The people who live here?  Isn’t that why people become public servants?  

I’ve been around long enough to have read about governments rife with corruption and witnessed politicians passing laws that benefit those very same few who contributed to their elections.  But in my heart of hearts, I want to feel that those who choose to serve the public in government are basically good people with the public’s good in mind.  

At age 60, I’m not so sure any more.  

In the 2010 election cycle, I heard responsible politicians say that folks like me -- folks who want to be sure all Americans have a shot at decent healthcare -- are communists, socialists, Nazis, unpatriotic, and/or not real Americans.  After the last two years of obstructionist tactics by the Republicans in Congress, I am embarrassed to call John Boehner a fellow southwestern Ohioan.  And now he’s Speaker of the House.  

I suppose I’m too thin-skinned about the name calling.  It’s just that I never put-up with it with my own daughters or in my own classroom.  Everybody was respected in my house and classroom everyday.  I thought that was the America/World we were all working for.  

So here’s the note to self I found myself filing mentally the other day:  

Politics is nasty.  Folks who hate government live in another world from mine.  There are Americans who would rather companies thrive while those neighbors with fewer resources struggle, some failing, to get by with just the basics of housing, education, and healthcare.  Such actions hurt me so much I don’t want to participate in that realm anymore. 

See your duty with the people.  Commit to serve in non-political settings.  Roll up your sleeves for community action outside of government.  

I’m currently making a list of stuff I want to start doing.  One is working on our church crew that feeds homeless families at the St. Vincent Hotel once a month.  

To heck with politics. I’m going to redouble efforts to find people in need.  In so doing, I will act out my own world commission for social justice.  I think I’ll like that better.  Screw elections.  

Today’s elder idea:  Every young American who participates in the Peace Corps will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace. 

John F. Kennedy 

image:  Snatched from the Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village & the Catholic Center at NYU website