Friday, August 23, 2013

Reading God's Mind

Reading God's mind is not only impossible to do, but irrelevant. God gave us each a mind: to think with, to change when new information makes that appropriate or even necessary, to instruct us to do the right thing. (I want to place heart in the background here; because weeping doesn't change the world, it just makes us feel righteous.) Sometimes, when a choice is complicated by national need or interests, we nonetheless have to be willing to respond appropriately to a moral imperative our MIND recognizes. Of COURSE responding appropriately can be scary--and leaders are not immune to being frightened about taking action: every important action is bound to have difficult consequences not only the desired one. Hell, we live in a time when fearful situation follows fearful situation like night follows day--every day. But isn't that a terrific cliche about courage: that courage is fear which has said its prayers? Earlier today, I made a joke on my Facebook page about President Obama being color blind. I was not referring to race. I was referring to the "red line" Syria passed when it began gassing opponents to his regime. Can we really not yet be sure? The effects are visible: rows of dead babies, are not likely to be "playing dead." And a leader--our leader--should not draw red lines unless he is prepared to follow through if the one he drew is crossed. There comes a time when a moral imperative overtakes political pros and cons. That time has come. One benefit of being a dictator is that you never have to torture or kill people yourself: you have plenty of underlings, eager or not, to do that for you. One concurrent deficit is that the dictator does not notice that, somehow, the blood of dead innocents is on his hands anyway. I recall being struck by the fact that, when Assad got serious about killing-to-ensure-progress, he attacked his wife's birthplace. Didn't we all think he wouldn't do that? This man has no intention of stopping until his opponents are all dead. And if some babies get killed, well, that's...what? Life? Mr. President, go back home. Perhaps get on your knees for a while. When you know what to do, get up and do it. If time on your knees isn't enough, try channeling Harry Truman.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Memoir as Mnemonic

Dear God, how things started coming back. Not in a flow, but like a blast of wet wind. Did I really do that? Did I really show up at a party peopled by my husband's department colleagues and toss him my silver flask? I couldn't have. I think I did. I hope I did. They were desert-dry, those Colgate Philsophy & Religion parties. This teetotaler thought bringing along a flask with some scotch in it was a wifely thing to do. Also not very likely to make me popular. As though I cared. I did, I cared. But they had already made clear that I did not fit in. That was only the second time I carried the flask anywhere--such an elegant thing, even if tossing it was not an elegant thing to do. I do hope I did it. The first time was several years earlier. I put the flask in my attache case when I left for a presentation in D.C. to the board of the Washington Gas Company. Washington, I'd been warned, was really a southern town and the board was all-male. They might well be put off by a woman making the presentation, let alone being in charge of the account. To complicate matters a teeny bit more, I had a fierce cough. I prepared. I studied my materials as though for a major test--because this was, I suppose. I wore a stunning red dress and mad sure my make-up was not a tinge overdone nor underdone. And, when we had gathered around the long table and I'd been introduced, I stood and I smiled and, in my softest toen range, made my presentation. Every so often, I stopped speaking, smiled and said, "Excuse me," then took out the flask, unscrewed the top, and took a ladylike sip of the contents. Cough medicine, if I had to swear on the Bible, but it never crossed the minds of those gentlemen that the flask contained other than good bourbon, I'm sure. What they saw--I hoped--was a woman matching their idea of a woman in business who had not forgotten her sex. Believe me, I had not. (No man on earth--"Mad Men" to the contrary--would have, could have, pulled off what I did.) They sat in the palm of my hand, those men, as I sold them my ad campaign. I think that when I finished, they were disappointed not to be able to do more for me than sign off on the campaign. Thank God, it was a good one, or I'd have that day's wiles on my conscience still. Oh the memories of when I was young and brave. Oh, dear dear God, Whom I love truly. Did I flirt until I was on the cusp of the no-turning-back border? Yes, there was such a border back then. And, yes, I did, more than two or three times--practically wore through my skirt sitting on that fence. I did virtuous things, too, that I'd forgotten till I began to write my memoir about God. But, not wanting to mix milk with meat, U will save thinking and writing here about those till another time.