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It
is a truth universally acknowledged that a nice American of good
moral standing innately escapes suffering.
It
is a truth universally acknowledged that a nice . . . I work
on a college campus as an assistant director within a residence
hall. My supervisors teach me that being nice works miracles among
residents in my hall. Apparently cutesy name tags and sugar-coated
diversity can cure the ails of 73 vaguely post-adolescent girls
as they struggle through their first few months of college. Student
development conferences, biannual pre-semester training, and more
paper resources than imaginable all educate new residence life staff
that simply being nice magically creates diverse, intelligent, empowered
adults.
.
. . American . . . I don't understand patriotism. While America
offers liberty so constricted in other countries, she suffers from
a silent sickness. American culture thrives from the concept that
consumerism cures global suffering. How do I support our liberation,
knowing we are the global bourgeoisie? This ideology prompted the
outrage at sending Elian Gonzales back to Cuba, where he might be
slightly impoverished, never mind with his family. The children
of the Baby Boomers, the current young professionals, are especially
prone to this syndrome. Our parents' mantra still rings in our ears,
"My child will have this, because he must have better than
I did." Unfortunately, this more often than not was of material
and consumerist nature. Our parents bought our love and bribed our
respect. We grew up under the disillusionment that the act of purchasing
purges the souls.
.
. . of good moral standing . . . As a child, I not only knew
all the answers to the questions posed in every Sunday school, Vacation
Bible School, and parochial school religion class, I volunteered
for activities like GA's AWANAS, church orchestra, and went to every
possible youth function in high school. In this flurry of church
activity, I watched churches preach--especially to young people--a
morality dependent of church politics. And wholeheartedly I believed
it. I just knew that if I were good enough, then epiphany would
befall some poor lost soul who, in turn, would fall to her knees
in worship and repentance. This perfect (and unattainable) morality,
preached from the pulpit several times a week, predisposes faith
and often incorporates ideology not found in Scripture. Christianity,
then, becomes something that can be judged on a scale of how good
I am.
.
. . innately escapes suffering. I can no longer quietly and
demurely sit as others wholeheartedly believe these logically fallible
half-truths. I commend the lie-manufacturers for noticing the suffering.
But I see the effects. Like too much wine, eventually too much half-truth
makes humanity, not just the American culture, sick. We must come
to the consensus that suffering will always exist. Undoubtedly,
there will always be disease; there will always be heartache, hunger,
and poverty. Even if such pestilence could be banished from humanity,
suffering would find another form of existence. And to teach people,
especially young people hungry for wisdom, that it can, is not only
foolish, but very, very dangerous.
The
concept of being nice as a cure does not limit itself to
collegiate-level student development. Coaches train their winning
Little Leaguers to be nice to the losing team; somehow. Being nice
is the balm to soothe the hurt of a game lost. The lonely kindergartner's
mother tells her every morning, "Honey, be nice to the other children,
and they will eventually be your friend." Student leadership conferences
motivate students to be nice as the cure for the disunity and diversity
cliques prevalent in their high schools. This lie pervaded every
educational experience among my memories. Recently, though, I have
seen the fallacy. Being nice solves very little. The ache of humanity
runs too deep. Those who still attempt to teach this method to me
are sadly misinformed. Not only can the sadness they try to soothe
always exist in some form or another, being nice can't touch it.
It is merely a superficial cure. If being sad is a disease, it is
a virus. Being nice, then, is an antibiotic. Antibiotics cannot
cure viruses. In fact, the long-term use of antibodies leads to
greater illness because bacteria eventually become immune. Similarly,
an overabundance of being nice to a suffering humanity underhanded
promotes the problem. Effective, perhaps, for shallow misfortune,
but I see great suffering among my fellow students. All the being
nice in the world couldn't flip their frowns upside down.
Media,
motivational speakers, and college professors all reiterate the
American dream, which, somehow, no longer is defined by personal
success, health, and happiness, but by three-car garages, corporate
America, and the purchasing power of cold, hard cash and an occasional
credit card. I concern myself very little with earning power; I
realize that paychecks should be sufficient to pay bills and buy
groceries, not contentment. I project small, but fully sufficient,
paychecks when I graduate in five months. Surprisingly, my nonchalant
acceptance of this financial fact concerns a few of my friends and
family. My life will not be measured out in payroll audits. Shouldn't
my happiness be worth more than a few dollars--especially when those
dollars are mine to lose, not theirs? After these negative appraisals,
I silently surveyed, noticing that the concern rests not on the
size of the paycheck, but its potential for purchasing. Americans
consume at outrageous rates: food, petroleum, clothing, housing,
water, all are grossly disproportional to us. We use consumerism
to Band-Aid the aches of our soul. To Americans, purchasing power
is more appealing than the liberties we now take for granted. I
posit that we do not want stuff; we want to control our environments
by purchasing stuff. The stuff just sits there; it's the
act we enjoy. We are not trying to save our souls with stuff, but
with purchasing power. Undoubtedly, this pursuit is of little avail.
Every
Sunday morning--and many evenings in between--preachers have the
opportunity to offer such healing from their pulpits. The mere idea
of unconditional loving kindness--regardless of one's faith or lack
thereof in God--is the greatest weapon to this suffering. Humanity,
though, seems to lack the ability to accept it. Instead, we spin
webs of perfection and morality attempting to earn it. The churches
only aid this false perception. We teach, from not only the pulpit,
but books, music, radio talk shows, and unfortunately, even from
my own mouth, that those who can't take the heat of moral perfection
need not apply, for they certainly can't be worthy of God. How many
will suffer before preachers--and parishioners--preach that loving
kindness exists whether or not we reciprocate, or even acknowledge
it?
I recently
awakened to the knowledge that I am not very nice, nor very moral,
and my attempt at consumeristic stupor left me still discontent
and in debt. The suffering still knots my soul. It has existed,
and it will continue to exist, until humanity ceases to exist. Suffering
nearly crushed Bible greats like Job. Jesus himself admitted its
existence when reminding Judas, as Mary Magdalene washed his feet
with perfume, that the poor will always be there. References to
it are few, though, and we don't like to admit to its presence in
our lives. We just chalk it up to living in a fallen world, and
go blindly about our business.
However,
Siddharta Guatam (a.k.a. the Buddha) named it. He called it dukkha,
a Pali word most easily translated into English as "suffering."
According to Buddhist philosophy, dukkha simply exists and
all humanity experiences it. We cannot avoid it; we cannot Band-Aid
it. Its reciprocate is metta, or universal lovingkindness.
The Buddha taught that mediating on metta would reduce dukkha
in oneself and eventually humanity as a whole.
If this
philosophy is truth, what prevents us from admitting that God oozes
this exact lovingkindness? Because lovingkindness truly exists beyond
the tangible, as fallible humanity we can only attempt to emulate
it, never achieving its epitome. However, God, who exists beyond
even the essence of the intangible, can. I do not assume that the
sudden cognition of lovingkindness will end all suffering. Nor do
I assume that faith will, either. I do challenge humanity to 'fess
up. We must let lovingkindess seep into our souls. A well-seeped
soul breeds the contentment the really nice, moral consumerist
is seeking. How better to receive lovingkindness than by accepting
its downpour from the only Being in existence who has the ability
to truly epitomize it?
A closer
look at Jesus himself, interestingly enough, reveals he was neither
really nice nor culturally moral nor a purchasing consumerist.
John 8 contains almost 60 verses about his ripping into the Pharisees
for being so caught up in their definition of morality that they
forgot both who they worship and the goal of their faith. Over and
over again, he received persecution from the clergy for failing
to meet their moral standards. And his post-blue collar carpentry
position? He exchanged it only for nomadic preaching and the reputation
of a spiritual pariah. Yet, somehow, he found contentment. Somehow
he realized joy. Somehow he knew lovingkindness. A culturally immoral,
Pharisee-bashing nomad found new balm for suffering. Fancy that.
Copyright
© 2001 Michelle Godwin. All Rights Reserved.
This is Michelle Godwin's first article for *spark-online.
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