Unveiling the Light

We seem to live in a time when appearance is everything and substance means nothing. Certainly this is evident in our popular culture where Paris Hilton continues to draw headlines. Other than looking beautiful, this is a woman of no substance, no redeeming qualities, and certainly no accomplishments. She is largely unemployed, known only for her partying and outrageous behavior, and can point to nothing in her life that has contributed positively to the society that idolizes her. Despite all of this, our culture cannot seem to get enough of her as is evidenced by the large crowd and numerous news media that gathered to witness her release from jail. Surely there are more important things going on in the world.

This phenomenon is very evident in our own government. One of the worst and most destructive fires is burning away in Lake Tahoe and the state’s governor is off in Europe meeting with foreign leaders who are themselves about to leave office. He is a governor, not the president. He has little influence on world affairs. He belongs in the state he is supposed to be running. Our state is experiencing a large exodus of the middle class due to the expense of living here, the ineffectiveness of our public school system, the deterioration of our health care system, and the overburdening of public services. This fire can trace its origins to Byzantine state laws that disallow us from thinning forests and managing our public lands. Locally the government that consumes a very large portion of our income in taxes is unable to provide lookouts to protect from fires and access roads that could help fight and prevent such disasters are decades behind schedule. All of this and our governor is off in Europe where, if possible, he is even more ineffective than he is while in the state.

Our lawmakers love to make laws that tell us how to live our lives, how to buckle up, where not to smoke, what not to eat, what speech is acceptable and even what thoughts are unacceptable (witness our hate speech laws), but are unable to provide us the basic services we require to maintain our society. Our traffic problems get worse, our police protection gets thinner, our schools eat up more and more money and become less and less effective, and all our legislature and governor can do is poise to look good and ride the latest wave of concern in the popular culture. Meanwhile, who is watching the store? Who is doing the serious work of making sure our society works?

What’s worse is that we have come to expect the worse from those who live off the public dole. We have come to understand that our state government is run by the public unions and recipients of state benefits and welfare. The working taxpayers find themselves largely ignored in a system run by those who earn from it. The best pay, best benefits, earliest retirements, and highest job security belongs to those who work for or receive benefits from the state. If you want to know why Nevada, Arizona and other desert states are booming it is because of the numerous members of the middle class who are fleeing our state to somewhere that offers them more opportunity and a say in their society. California quit listening to its middle class decades ago.

On the federal level we have government official trying desperately to sell us a new “comprehensive immigration plan” but nobody seems to believe what they say. The fact is that we don’t believe the rules will be enforced. We don’t believe that background checks will be made, we don’t believe that the border will be protected, and we don’t believe that illegal immigrants will not receive full benefits or be made to take on any responsibilities. The Senate can pass all the amendments it wants but we don’t believe they will be enforced. Why? Because recent history has shown that our representatives are more worried about looking good in the press than being effective. We have been burned too many times. We realize that this government has quit trying to be effective and is merely trying to buy a few headlines that will lead to re-election.

Its not that we don’t believe immigration is a problem. Most realize that the lack of progress by the lower middle class over the past few decades can be directly traced to the large influx of illegal immigrants. There was once a time when carpenters could earn a good living building houses. Today this is largely done by those barely making minimum wage, by a population of workers who are undocumented and thus unable to demand the wages such work should pay. The simple economics is that when you flood the market with workers, the wages decrease. Restrict the supply of labor and wages will increase and decent wages, and probably highly increased productivity, will follow. Immigrants don’t just take jobs others don’t want, although the attractiveness of these jobs they take may be reduced because of the plunging compensation caused by massive illegal immigration; they affect the entire strata of labor that is not bound to higher education. This is not a good situation. Those who are skilled and willing to work hard should be able to earn a good middle class income without going to college.

It just seems that everyone is worried about political points and style and nobody is looking to substance and towards improving our society. Somehow we have to get out of this self aggrandizement that treats every subject as a personal win/lose battle where each is out for themselves and get back to the business of building a solid society. We preach this and teach this in Church and it is our goal as a Christian people to be a people of substance who do not look just to ourselves but who look to what we can do for others. It’s just hard for our message to stay clear when there is so much clamoring by shallow, self serving politicians who only want our attention and approval and others who are only looking out for their own advancement. We need people that look to the real matters at hand and work for real improvement. Let’s stop the games, the posturing, and the poll driven shallow behavior and get back to real life. Real people, real children, and a real future, depend on us being a bit unselfish. The health and survivability of our society depends on us cutting through the noise and getting back to the business of life. We are better than this.

Posted by Fr Steven Foppiano at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Life has been a bit exciting lately and very busy. Still, I do have some thoughts on the world around me.

Whys?

Why? Why is the State of California which is at the height of an economic boom and still unable to balance its budget, spending tens of millions on the research of embryonic cells? There is zero evidence that there is any hope of discovering cures via this method while research into adult stem cells and placenta has already produced credible and exciting advances. There is a reason that the private industry has pulled out of such research. It does not appear to be a method that will yield results and private industry will only put its money into research that has hope of producing profitable results. It is up to government to waste money on lost causes or political agendas.

We were asked to choose between “cures” and morality in the election that allowed these funds to be diverted. The truth is that this is purely a political ploy. Many of us find such research that requires the killing of life to be abhorrent but those who reject any restriction on personal choice needed this victory. It will not yield miracle cures but it does push forth an agenda that sees anything less than a live birth to a wanting family as “a blob”, and not life. All of this when preemies are surviving at a younger and younger age, proving that what was once thought to be a “blob” of flesh was indeed life. There is no reason for public finance of a procedure that so many find inhuman when there is no evidence that it will yield results. This violence against our human nature should stop and we should not be forced to support it through our taxes.

Why? Why do we need a law now being pushed that allows assisted suicide? Why not you might ask, isn’t that a personal choice? Again we are seeking to make this part of our public policy and it is dangerous ground to cover. At a time when we are living longer and longer, government, insurance companies, and sometimes even relatives are beginning to see the aging population in terms of their cost and liabilities. It is dangerous when we fail to see the value of life in itself and measure everyone in the terms of what they contribute or cost. Every life has value. We need to encourage people to live, not cheer when they choose to die.

I remember many, especially the elderly from “the old country”, who lamented that, “God should just take me now.” Family understood that this was a cry of anguish at being unable to contribute to the family the way they were accustomed to and would assure them of how much they were appreciated and loved. Self serving or not, in the future such a spoken woe is likely to bring on a doctor with a needle or pill and congratulations for refusing to be a burden. How sad that economics and self interest is driving our morality to the extent that we have little concern for those responsible for our being alive. How sad that places of healing and care could be turned into places where life is easily discarded. We are better then this.

Why? Why is it that we have become a people convinced that we will live forever while at the same time we become so callous about the lives of others? We live as if the end will never come and at funerals speak of what the person did wrong that resulted in their death. Do we think that we will somehow avoid the “mistake of death?” Are we so tied into controlling our own lives that we must even control the moment it ends? Have we truly become so enamored in ourselves that we have no need for God and refuse to see the world as something larger than our own needs?

It was once said that the true greatness of a society is found in how it treats the weakest of its members. In this we are failing. In some ways it may seem that we have done well in that we have empowered the disabled by mandating easier access and supporting their rights, but that very term illustrates what is wrong. We “empower people.” Does that mean that those unable to wield power have no rights and no place among us? We empower people largely to live independent lives and then say, “Now don’t bother me.” We seem to fear any dependence on others and try to live our own life as an independent being, without need of assistance from others, (Unless it’s the government paying us what we see as our rightful gain.) or needing to extend ourselves to help others. For those who are unable to live independently, we look upon them as less than worthy and we fear ever becoming dependent ourselves.

Why Not? Why not learn to love one another and depend on one another. We are not truly independent. Nobody was born into adult hood and nobody can truly live without others in our lives. This is simply a method of self delusion which seeks to separate ourselves from any pain in our lives. As a result, we can live to far less than our potential and, in many ways, waste the gift of life we have been given. We are not meant to be islands separate from each other. We are called to live in society, to share ourselves with others and to allow others to share themselves with us. That is where we will find the joy and peace we seek. It will not come in miracle cures, self fulfillment, or self promotion.

We are part of something larger than ourselves. Our lives are gifts from God, as are the talents God gives us. We should use them for the betterment of all and with a great respect for our human nature. We need to realize that nobody escapes this life without passing through the gates of death. In the end, what will matter is not what we gained in this life but what we learned and who we are. In the end most of the things we spend our times worrying about will seem trivial and the relationships we ignored will loom desperately large. Let us try to gain the good perspective on life before the end comes. Then it will be too late to repair our mistakes. Today is the time to make changes. Our first task should be to realize that we are not gods, but that God does love us and calls us to be much better than this.

Father Steven Foppiano

Posted by Fr Steven Foppiano at 02:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)