Afraid Of Laughter
Back to home base. It feels good to be back at Starbucks. Here I compose my thoughts trying to decide which of my conflicted selves I will give voice to. The cappuccino machine roars in the background. Maybe this is as it has to be. We live by the rhythm of the machines which we depend upon. Like it or not…. Customers eager for their morning coffee, or a beverage that requires some combination of ingredients, communicate their choice over the internet, prior to their arrival at the pickup window or to the counter inside. They arrive, and the barista works with focus, while multitasking to (or in spite of) the crosstalk coming over their headset, — then serves the completed beverage to the waiting customer. This is a game for the youthful, for a skilled barista in their prime. When the cappuccino machine is not roaring, the room seems unnaturally quiet.
Easter weekend pulls me back to my youth. The feeling is interesting, something that I am curious to continue to think about. Also, the feeling is surreal and uncomfortable. The discomfort side of the matter tapped me on the shoulder several days ago. I exchanged emails with a friend and I actually said to him that Christians are empty, hollow shells, unaware they they are “running on empty.” The recipient of this stark judgment recognized that my statement was a knee-jerk comment upon my fundamentalist upbringing.
In the aftermath of the conflagration that destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral, and news reports of the traditional Easter activities held at the Vatican, and in Palestinian occupied territories, I ponder whether Christianity has any cash value left. Or is this a bankrupt relic of what was once a robust movement that offered a humane alternative to the raw force of Roman rule?
It is unfair to paint every individual who considers their participation in a particular tradition, religious or political, with a broad brush. Each of us is one-of-a-kind with motivations and purposes that are best addressed with openness, instead of cynicism. My friend was right to reply, that all who believe should not be lumped together.
One must wonder though. The Imperium Rōmānum that imposed its way upon the Mediterranean basin North Africa and Europe for fifteen hundred years has passed over the horizon of history. Human nature is essentially the same today though much else has changed. Patterns recur, repeat themselves. In our time a globalized world is again engaged with the offer of strong man rule, violent, directly beneficial for its supporters, promising order — in the face of approaching climate change, and political unrest. Will/does Christianity have anything to offer?
I do not know.
I would like to offer this poem by Matthew Arnold as apt food for thought:
Dover Beach
By Matthew ArnoldThe sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!Only, from the long line of sprayWhere the sea meets the moon-blanched land,Listen! you hear the grating roarOf pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,At their return, up the high strand,Begin, and cease, and then again begin,With tremulous cadence slow, and bringThe eternal note of sadness in.Sophocles long agoHeard it on the Ægean, and it broughtInto his mind the turbid ebb and flowOf human misery; weFind also in the sound a thought,Hearing it by this distant northern sea.The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,Retreating, to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world.Ah, love, let us be trueTo one another! for the world, which seemsTo lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;And we are here as on a darkling plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night.
