I am leaving the Atlantic City Expressway and driving on the
marsh road that will drop me right onto the Jersey shore. In this daydream, I am not far from Rio
Grande Boulevard, Avalon, Stone Harbor, or my other favorite haunts, but I am
not there yet.
It is night and I can
see the Ferris wheel, high and mighty in the distance. The dark sky is lit by its circular rotation
of colored lights, as if a Christmas tree was flung up in the air spinning. It always seemed too big to me, so daunting,
I was afraid to go on it. Standing at
its base on the ancient boardwalk, heralded by more than a few doo-wop singers,
I stare up at it in wonder. Can
something so great be trusted to take my fragile humanity off the earth so high
into the heavens?
Now all I can think is that I want to be on that road,
driving purposefully towards that skyline.
I forgive Hurricane Sandy for sending us away a few years ago before our
vacation had officially ended. For some
on that trip, it would be their last time at the Jersey Shore before they
crossed Jordan for the Other Shore. I
forgive the black flies for biting us on the beach in 2019, the year they were
disturbed by the giant rake machine that tidied the beach in preparation for
the upcoming annual Firemen’s Weekend. I
forgive the landlord who was not forthcoming about their lack of internet. (NO internet connection for more than 3
minutes, ever, is not the same thing as “spotty internet connection.”) I forgive my friends for the times I may have
gotten on their nerves, and vice versa, I hope they extend me the same
courtesy. I forgive the Firemen partiers
in the boy-toy pickup truck for passing me on a solid line and almost killing
three people in the crosswalk in front of us with me almost having a heart attack
by watching it – I know you had too much beer already before nightfall. I forgive the tires of my bicycle for not
being more sporting of my intent to ride long and hard…. I ask a lot of
you. I forgive everybody, everything,
ever …. Just give me my Jersey Shore back!
I do not forgive COVID for pulling the brakes on life as I
knew it. I would give you 8 months out
of the year – the working months with crappy weather – if you’d just give me back
July, August, and September. I want to
be on the beach at the nearby lake without feeling people are too close to me
when I go in the water. I want to not
wonder if the surface of the water was loaded with germs, more than the algae
beneath its surface. I want to take my blue
mask off for 2 seconds when it fogs my glasses so I can see where I am walking
without getting dirty looks by people. I
want to look at people without mistrust:
“are YOU going to make me sick?!”
I want to not feel aggressive about the people who have the devil-may-care
attitude and think it’s all a hoax. But
I also want to not feel depressed about the people who think that wearing a
mask is any bigger of a deal than it is.
Sure we ran low on toilet paper, but we did not run low on FOOD nor did
we have to stand in lines like our ancestors did during the Great Depression ….
Which, I imagine was not so “great” at all.
In actual fact, Mr. COVID, I am sick and tired of you
entirely. You make some people nervous
and scared. You make others aggressive,
reckless and short-tempered. You have
killed a few people; and you have made others varying degrees of sick. But as for me, I will emphasize again: I am sick of you entirely. The fact that people even mention you or make
references to you in their Christmas cards is sad. You have dominated our horizon and rained on
our parade. I hope you go back from
whence you came …. And you know how far south that is! (think: heat, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, very
much farther South.)
But in your terrible wake, you have left a gift that some
have not noticed. You gave us a re-set. It may not exactly be a silvered lining of the
blackest of clouds, yet it is a gift.
You see, some people want to go back “to Normal,” as if there ever was
one. But I remember, because I am old
enough to stir it up, how it was the last time we came back collectively to
Normal…. It was worse.
In the 1950’s television was developed (but invented in late
1920’s). By the 1960’s every house had
at least two, and in the 1970’s people had color television. It was the beginning of a technological
maelstrom. Radio, Television, Movies,
Internet, Cyberspace, Gaming, etc. It
spun and spun like a dervish. And as it
spun, our morals too were up-ended as a culture. We began by portraying happy stories. Coming out of the Great Depression, that is
what people wanted to see: “happy stories. Every princess finds a prince; every Ozzie
has a Harriet; a goose in every pot.”
Then people complained and said, “not all is happy – show us how it
really is” – and Media took over and gave us a look at crime, violence, the
seven deadly sins and every vice conceivable.
Our viewers’ perception of how the world was changed. And they treated it as such. So, the world changed. Now we have the world that Media created with
vice, mixed virtue, and a reality tv that does not in any way resemble my
humble reality (thank Heavens).
While Marshall McLuhan asked in the 1980’s, “Does Reality
create the Media, or does Media create Reality?” we debated it in college classes. Now, no debate is necessary. We are 70 years down the road and it is, frankly,
getting old. The sin. The sick minds. The violence.
The dissolution of the moral fiber which was truly holding us all
together. Ten Commandments, out! God, out!
(unless using the Name to curse). Healthy Family Life, out! Sanity, out!
So maybe it’s time to say, “Trash Media, out!”
On September 11, 2001 the North American world was rocked by
terrorist attacks. Shortly thereafter,
there was a hiatus on intense violence in the media. It was as if Hollywood was giving us a break
of some sort. It was almost relieving to
watch tv that was a bit lighter. Our
nerves had been collectively assaulted when our national security was
shaken. We needed a break. And then people on the streets of New York
began to talk to each other, to have caring in their voice. To greet people with genuine concern. We sang, “I’m Proud to Be an American” and “God
Bless America” in our streets. A culture
had shifted. And then the media, over
time, ramped-up again to poisoning us with more intensity. Now, in the city where I work, there is at
least a WEEKLY shooting or stabbing. I
avoid the colossus that is our mall not because I don’t enjoy shopping, but
because I am afraid of seeing a violent episode (as I did the time I was there
two years ago).
The generation that followed that time kept their kids
increasingly more busy. Their business
lives were frenetic as well. Their home
lives were fraying more than just “at the edges,” and divorces went up to
50% As a society we were running on
high-speed. It was the new “normal” that
had been created after a national crisis. And it was fast and furious leaving a
lot of spiritual deficit in its wake.
And then from across the sea, allegedly from an open-air market and an
order of take-out “bat-to-go,” (on
rice?) the whole known world was brought to its knees.
Wake up: There is no
Normal to go back to. From this point,
we must push forward to create the world of good health, yes, and peace and
spiritual balance. It is the season for
a reign of peace. It is the season for
hopes and dreams. It is the season for
an end to violence in our streets. It is
less about who sits in the White House, and should be more about who we are
forming and shaping in our homes. For
the section of culture that was satisfied to have the government form its children’s
moral values, “welcome to Home Schooling.”
You see how you have a unique opportunity to give something truly
meaningful to your kids right now. Do it. Do not let this chance pass you by, or we
will talk about these days when we are sitting in the nursing homes in 30 more
years.
Mr. Covid, you make me look into the mirror again. I see a new me. I am stronger, I am wiser. I will walk in Faith more than ever
before. I will live decidedly for the
goal of making the world a better, more virtuous place. You may have tried to use leaders to take our
places of worship away, but my God says that MY BODY IS A TEMPLE. So now, as I walk with my God, I will be what
He wanted the world to see all along:
kind, caring, virtuous …. If I can do it, it will be by His grace
alone.
I still long for the ocean.
But now that I have been made brave by the pressure of adversity, I will
stand at the foot of that Ferris wheel, turn to the woman in the booth and
say: “One, please.” On that day, I will see the world with joy.
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