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I have
written in this week's Steeple Notes of my life-long fascination
with rolltop desks. Which are no good for writing sermons,
given their scarcity of working space. But which are great
for storing stuff, given their abundance of nooks and crannies,
slots and drawers, shelves and cubbyholes. For the beauty
of a rolltop desk is not in the stuff you can stash there,
but in the stuff you can separate there.
Which
explains why, as a child, I was equally fascinated by dinner
plates which were subdivided by ridges into three autonomous
sections. You could put your meat in one section, potatoes
in another and vegetables in a third, with perfect confidence
that juice from your corn would never water down your mashed
potatoes, and that gravy from your potatoes would never cross
the ridge and turn your corn brown. There was a day when I
wouldn't eat from any other kind of plate. And I still have
one ... sort of. My wife tells me it's called a "grill
plate," and is really rather fashionable. But I seldom
eat from it anymore ... unless I am stressed, overwrought,
or emotionally out-of-sorts.
I have
grown beyond such desks and plates. But the images return,
from time to time, when I pause to consider the ways that
people compartmentalize their lives ... thus insuring that
one activity does not touch another ... that one role does
not impact another ... and that the people with whom one does
a particular thing do not become the people with whom one
does anything else.
This is
a subtle thing, given the degree to which life requires a
modicum of differentiation. Each of us is called to assume
a variety of roles, that call forth a variety of talents.
Therefore, it is inevitable that we will function differently
at work than we do at home, and that different sides of our
nature will come out at a church meeting than on a softball
field. It goes without saying that we will package ourselves
a little differently, depending upon the time, the place,
the task, and (most especially) the audience. The Apostle
Paul talked about such "packaging" when he told
one of his churches that he could adapt to a variety of circumstances ... looking
like a Jew to Jews and a Greek to Greeks ... in order to win
both Jews and Greeks to Christ. Paul considered such "packaging"
to be both normal and effective. He figured that putting his
best faith forward required putting his best face forward.
But, depending upon the audience, his "best face"
was not always the same face, although never so different
so as to make him appear two-faced.
The one
phase of life when "differentiation" is polished
into an art form is the teenage phase. Most teens go through
periods where they try to keep certain parts of their lives
walled off from other parts of their lives. Even in the best
of homes, most adolescents would prefer that their parents
spend several years hiding in closets, rather than coming
into any contact, of any sort, with any of their friends.
When surveyed
to discover what kind of advice they would give to their mothers
(as in a "list of rules" to post on the refrigerator),
teens came up with the following:
Don't
quiz me about my friends.
Don't
make small talk with my friends.
Don't
try to be "cool" around my friends.
Don't
criticize me in front of my friends.
Don't
hug me, kiss me or tell me I'm "cute" in the presence
of my friends.
Walk
several paces behind me in the mall, in downtown Birmingham,
or any other place where we might conceivably run into my
friends.
And
don't ever imply that you and dad might be romantic (or
intimate) within earshot of my friends.
Most of
us have gone through that stage ... and survived that stage ... knowing
that the day will come when our kids can (once again) be talked
to, walked with, and even kissed in public.
No longer
will they feel the need to separate home from school, or friends
from family. But some kids become stuck at this stage and
never get the divergent parts of their lives reassembled.
I recall the kid who said to me (sometime in the middle of
his eighteenth year): "I have friends I get drunk with
and friends I do everything else with." Which is not
unlike a woman I once knew ... respected professional ... beloved
daughter ... cherished friend ... who went through a period
when she favored men she met in airports. She reasoned: "Airports
offer men who like the good life and are not about to place
any demands on my life." In other words, she could "connect"
in the one place that allowed her to remain totally disconnected.
Alas,
some people never do make connections out of the "disconnects."
They remain altogether different persons in different settings,
assuming that life is sufficiently compartmentalizable, so
that the contradictions will never catch them up ... or trip
them up.
The best
example is the Mafia don whose business, by day, involves
every illegal activity known to man (up to and including murder),
but who pays detailed attention to the roles of husband and
father, leading many to view him as the quintessential family
man. When I watched the first of the Godfather epics,
I remember being caught up in the paradox. On the one hand,
I was appalled by the viciousness, the brutalizations, and
the cold-blooded cruelties of life in the Mob. But I was also
attracted to the weddings, the christenings, and the multi-generational
Italian family dinners, depicting scenes of familial solidarity
I would love to have experienced as a kid. I found myself
wondering how the Mafia don lived in both worlds. Obviously,
part of every day he had to be living a lie. But (from watching
the movie) I could never quite tell which part was the lie
and which, the truth.
The Bible
says, does it not, that you cannot live this way ... that a
house divided against itself cannot stand ... that nobody can
serve dual masters ... and that while it is possible to move
in a number of directions (which is called "being flexible,"
and which is deemed to be "good"), each move must
pivot-off-of, and be-true-to the same center.
Last night,
several of you watched the rerun of a film from several years
ago entitled Indecent Proposal. It featured a young,
attractive couple ... very much in love ... but very down on
their luck. About to lose their dream home (which was still
in the process of being constructed), they went to Vegas where
they were going to put it all on "one night at the tables."
But inside the casino, the young wife (Demi Moore) was spotted ... and
coveted ... by a rich and handsome millionaire (Robert Redford).
Redford befriended the couple, gained their trust, and then
put forth a proposal. One night with the young wife ... just
one night ... in return for a $1 million check, payable to
the couple.
Which
offer they pondered. Then accepted. And in rare cinematic
understatement, we saw nothing of "that night" from
the moment Redford and Moore went off with each other, to
the moment she returned. What we did see was the great marital
trauma that followed in the aftermath ... in spite of the fact
that both the young wife and her husband agreed to this arrangement
at the outset. Fortunately, after an hour of marital pain
and anguish, true love triumphed and everybody went home.
Yet most
of the audience missed a key point. For those who saw it ... and
who went out for coffee afterward ... pondered (aloud) what
they would or wouldn't do for a million dollars. Clearly,
the dollar amount was paramount in those discussions. But
the "million" interests me nary at all. It is not
my reason for bringing this matter before you. What interests
me is the "justification" the young husband and
his wife feed each other, the better to calm their consciences
about accepting the offer. "After all (they tell each
other), it will just be one night. It'll come. It'll go. We'll
bracket it ... block it out ... set it apart from the rest of
our lives ... and never talk about it again. It will be like
it never happened." To which the young woman adds: "After
all, it's just my body."
But it
wasn't "just her body." They couldn't block it out.
And neither can you. For life is not capable of that kind
of compartmentalization. You can't put pieces of your life
in a drawer ... slot ... nook ... shelf ... cranny or cubbyhole ... and
assume that they will not (over time) wind up touching all
the other pieces. Which means that the real issue of Indecent
Proposal is not what you would sell ... to whom ... for
how much. The real issue concerns the degree to which you
can wall off one part of your life from every other part of
our your life, so that you don't get hurt by the contradictions.
With that
in mind, let me turn (albeit briefly) to a pair of questions
that many of you have posed of late. The first concerns allegations
of indiscretions in the White House, and public responses
to these allegations. To this day, I do not know who uncovered
what ... who covered up what ... or whether the covering and
uncovering had as much to do with politics, as with ethics.
I simply don't know. I have my own opinions. As do you. But
that's pretty much what they are at this point ... opinions.
You have
not asked for my opinion. But you have asked: "Should
such things matter?" And the answer is simple. Sure,
such things should matter. They should matter a great deal.
Not because every leader should be pure. But because every
leader should be whole ... as in, together ... as in, integrated ... as
in, non-compartmentalized ... as in, maintaining threads of
consistency between public and private promises, and between
secret and social behaviors.
And I'm
speaking of all leaders ... not just the one who presently
occupies the Oval Office. For the ultimate threat such leaders
face is not the divided house without (Republicans vs. Democrats),
but the divided house within.
But you
have also asked a second question: "Should the economy
provide immunity?" Meaning, are we more tolerant of our
leaders when times are good than when times are less good?
I suspect we are. Which says something about our own tendency
to compartmentalize, does it not ... ethics in one box, economy
in the other.
Which
brings me to a related question: "How is it that I decided
to become active in the drive to repeal Proposal E (by seeking
to place the `casino issue' before the voters, one more time)?"
As far as gambling goes, I have never done much ... or said
much. I am one of the few people I know who has never purchased
a lottery ticket. My last really big wager was with Hunter
Hook ... who, for all of his four years, played hardball when
he won. Hunter took the Broncos. I took the Packers. At stake
was a chocolate shake, which I paid in 24 hours.
I suppose
there are a lot of ways I could explain my belated involvement:
1. Perhaps,
because a layman I respect asked me to ... gently ... and
provided me with a number of studies which, once I read
them, became impossible to dismiss.
2. Perhaps,
because my denomination has maintained a long-time opposition
to organized gambling in any form.
3. Perhaps,
because casinos levy an exorbitant tax upon the poor ... who
lose, proportionately, far more than I do, and who (given
their situation in life) can ill afford to lose anything.
4. Perhaps,
because the values I have spent a lifetime working to establish,
tend to take a direct hit whenever gambling flourishes.
5. Perhaps,
because gaming and greed have never been able to occupy
the same bed without giving birth to crime ... inevitably
... repeatedly ... and without the benefit of a normal,
nine-month gestation.
6. Perhaps,
because I don't like the odds which differentiate the cities
which lose from the cities (if any) which win.
7. Or
perhaps, because the local fiasco of selecting the bidders
and choosing the sites has convinced me that, even if casinos
offered a flicker of hope, we wouldn't have a snowball's
chance in hell of creating a flame.
But, as
a suburbanite, it ultimately boils down to the compartmentalization
issue once again. For if I believe that:
cities
are worth saving,
jobs
are worth creating,
schools
are worth improving,
and
families are worth rebuilding,
then why
not put my time, money, effort and energy behind those goals,
rather than acquiesce to an industry (dubious at best and
immoral at worst) which offers to do it for me, if I but turn
the lights and the money green? Especially when I know that
casinos are not now ... nor have they ever been ... in the "salvation"
business. The appeal that begins, "Let's grab some of
that money before it crosses the bridge to Canada," is
an appeal to my own greed, don't you see? And if I sell out
to it, I deserve the sewage that will come flowing back with
the dollars.
*
* * * *
Several
years ago, I told you one of my all-time favorite stories.
It concerned a fictional character in the throes of an ethical
dilemma. His name was Steven Keaton. And while I am not a
regular viewer of Nick at Nite, I suspect he can still be
seen as the father in the syndicated reruns of the sitcom,
Family Ties. In this particular episode, the issue
was Steve Keaton's mid-life crisis. His wife had gone back
to work. His kids were moving in meaningful directions of
their own. No one seemed to have much time for him at home.
But there was someone who did ... have time for him, that is.
She was young ... creative ... attractive ... available ... and
assigned to work on his project at the office.
One day
she let it be known that she'd be staying late to work on
a campaign. It was an implied invitation ... unspoken, but
readable in her eyes. He read it. Then he packed his briefcase
and went home to dinner. But nobody was sitting down to dinner.
They were catching dinner on the fly. His wife and kids all
had places they needed to be. But he had nowhere he needed
to be. So he went back to the office.
He made
a pass at working on the project. She made a pass at him.
They embraced. He drew back. She said: "Steven, I know
how much your wife and kids mean to you. I can live with that.
If I ever get to the point where I can't, I'll walk away.
So why not come back to my place, just for tonight. No one
will ever find out. I guarantee it."
He thought
for a moment. Then he said: "I can't do that. I can't
view my life as if it were a series of unrelated incidents.
It's not. Everything in it is connected to everything else."
*
* * * *
When I
was reminiscing in the church office about my grandfather's
rolltop desk ... complete with its marvelous little spaces
for sorting, stashing and separating stuff ... Janet said to
me: "And when you wanted to walk away, all you had to
do was pull down the lid and cover up the mess inside."
To which I thought: "Only in the world of furniture,
my dear. Only in the world of furniture."
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