COMMENTARY: Life goes on … we hope

SALINA, Kan. (RNS) My wife sealed the envelopes as I affixed the postage stamps (white roses) and out went the rehearsal dinner invitations for our middle son’s wedding in California. Already a year in the planning, the upcoming August wedding is a reminder that, for all the blather of our hyper-partisan politicians, life goes on. […]

SALINA, Kan. (RNS) My wife sealed the envelopes as I affixed the postage stamps (white roses) and out went the rehearsal dinner invitations for our middle son’s wedding in California.

Already a year in the planning, the upcoming August wedding is a reminder that, for all the blather of our hyper-partisan politicians, life goes on. People join their lives. Families meet and hope to get along. In time, a new generation arrives.

The obscene protect-the-rich ideology that is bullying Congress toward government meltdown will hurt millions of Americans. More jobs will vanish and more homes will fall to foreclosure. Companies and schools will fail, basic government services will languish, infrastructure will crumble, and a nation primed for greatness will continue a tragic retreat that makes its future even more dangerous.


Meanwhile, life goes on.

Or does it?

That question troubles me. A nation is like a river. If you keep polluting it and draining it, eventually the river dies. If our political venues continue to be polluted by delusional thinking, ideological partisanship and unconcern for the future, eventually the nation dies.

While the biological side of life can survive any storm and love can conquer all, a nation that panders to the wealthy and to religious extremists won’t remain free for long. People will get too unsatisfied — the rich don’t share and religious ideologues don’t care. Soon anxiety will turn to rage, and demagogues will gladly step up to offer scapegoats and simple solutions.

We try to survive by compartmentalizing. Our son and his fiancee spent a year planning a wedding, and to them that is sufficient reality for now. All around them in Northern California’s tech paradise are economic winners who pursue magical new hardware and mind-expanding software as if unemployment elsewhere didn’t matter.

But after a speaking engagement here in middle America, I can tell you that compartmentalization and selective prosperity aren’t working. Churches are folding, local economies are struggling, towns are dying, and attitudes are strangely flat.

Maybe it’s possible for boom times along the coasts to carry the entire nation, but I doubt it. When an entire state (Minnesota) shuts down and others declare war on their citizens, Google+ isn’t enough. When millions of people age 45 and older wonder if they will ever work again and pension cuts make the elderly an easy target, not even iPad 3 will turn the tide.

In my church development work, I encourage congregations to get ready: ratchet down nonessential spending and free up funds to help the needy. Stop fighting and start finding fresh ways to serve a despairing and angry citizenry. See the world as it is, and venture into it. Preach hope to neighbors who see little basis for it anywhere else.


It will take unusual boldness to serve in this era of grim resignation. The comfy conspiracies of faux news are so much more pleasing. Turning a complex drama of post-modern government into a simplistic shootout between Obama and House Republicans is easier. Remembering better days offers some solace and a Casey Anthony trial can offer diversion.

But reality doesn’t go away. Times are tough.

I won’t go into this when I officiate at my son’s wedding, but it will be heavy on my heart.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter (at)tomehrich.)

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