 |
Rev. Rich Lang |
I recently attended a community-church
meeting in the View Ridge neighbor-
hood. The gathering was for the purpose
of discerning whether or not the church
would host Tent City for a summer stay.
The meeting itself was composed, civil,
and orderly. The result was the rejection
of a Tent City encampment.
The neighbors were, of course, deeply
caring for the homeless. They cared so
much for them that speaker after speaker
made passionate appeals for the city to do
something about it. They cared so profound-
ly for the homeless that they insisted that
better solutions be proposed that would
offer the homeless the care and resources
they needed. They expressed great anguish
for the homeless, whom they so very much
wanted to help, but simply felt convinced
that living in tents, especially tents that a
few neighbors would actually have to look
at, was not the composed, civil, and orderly
way to demonstrate their care.
The church, old and gray and kind like
good grandparents are suppose to be, lis-
tened to the objections of their neighbors.
They were pained and sorrowed and most
certainly didn’t want to cause division,
bad feelings, and confl ict in their nicely
composed, civil, and ordered community.
The church, in all of its utterly irrelevant
mediocrity, could offer no compelling, pas-
sionate, intelligently articulate rationale
for why the neighborhood should willingly
invest itself in the sacrifi ce of its comfort
and privilege. And so, Tent City was sent
off to be someone else’s problem.
However, the deeply concerned neigh-
borhood was invited by the kindly church
grandparents to join them in a task force
to do something about homelessness. So
although Tent City was not welcome in the
neighborhood, the meeting ended on the
important feel-good that something, by
someone, would most certainly be done
sometime, somewhere, some place.
It was at that point that I thought that
a proper response would have been for
me to go up into the balcony and proceed
to projectile vomit over the entire gather-
ing. Surely these good, decent, neighborly
Americans were not as evidently stupid
as their statements made them out to be?
Surely, these gung-ho patriotic Americans
weren’t as spineless, morally gutless, and
cruel as their actions indicate?
But evidently they are. The View
Ridge community has wealth but no
heart, they have homes but no hospitality,
they have proclamations but meaningless
application. The View Ridge community
embodies the utter moral depravity and
logical consequence of the American
Dream that pretends to build a perfect
life. Personally, I’d be afraid to raise my
children around such deviants.
As for the Church, kindly grandparents
that they are, I found myself wondering
how the congregation will be able to read
the scriptures this Sunday without break-
ing down and weeping. But then, hopefully,
that will be exactly what they do. |
