If you’re a regular reader of my ramblings, you will have noticed how I ramble so much about changes I’ve seen in my lifetime. I reminisce a lot. I write about my complaints and near complaints about transitions. I beg your forgiveness. Naturally, it comes from where I am now with more years behind me than before. I fight a constant battle against the tendency to spend much time looking back and bemoaning how times have changed. Don and I have tried to keep engaged with life though retirement seemed to have pushed us a bit off the mainstream.
A couple of weeks ago I had a pesky molar extracted. I tried to suffer the pain for the longest time, but it could no longer be helped. As I sat on the dental chair, the oral surgeon and his assistant talked while working on my tooth. They talked about how the surgeon attended a conference and evaded paying the $650 attendance fee. He paid $20 for the name tag of a registered friend. Then the friend reported it as lost, so he could be issued a replacement tag. This upset me quite a bit. I wondered if I could trust this man. And they didn’t seem to be concerned that I could hear all this. It was as if there was nothing wrong with what he had done.
In the movie “The Sound of Music” there is a poignant scene where Capt. Von Trapp had just received a telegram from the new Austrian order. He gets lost in his thoughts and stares at a distance. The Baroness comes and asks, “You're far away. Where are you?” The Captain answers, “In a world that’s disappearing.”
My world, too, is disappearing. The core values that were taught me and passed on to me by my parents, grandparents, teachers and mentors are being slowly eroded by secularism, pragmatism, cynicism and various other “isms” that through the years have been introduced and taught by school systems, parenting authorities, political systems and the entertainment industry. For sure there are some good things that have come out of contemporary influences. There is a greater openness and tolerance for some ideas and ways which were so unwelcome years ago. The increase in the amount of information available to everyone has educated us more effectively and productively. The new technologies have made life a bit easier to manage to a certain degree. But I often question if the trade-offs we make for these new things and new values have made us better people. Our relationships with one another have become very superficial. Our new core values have sometimes made us very selfish and self-centered. I look at Facebook postings and see narcissism oozing out of its pages.
Sometimes I wonder if there is still any virtue in being humble. We are told to do whatever we can to promote and market ourselves. "Selfies" have become a national preoccupation. Our politicians say character is no longer important as long as they serve their constituencies well and are productive. We have elected a president who outrightly lied to the Grand Jury and to the whole nation, but has become one of the most popular politicians of our time. To believe in God is to earn a label of being less than intelligent. And honesty? As long as you are not caught in your dishonesty, you are fine. The new morality keeps my head shaking. Promiscuity seems to be the order of the day. “What? You were a virgin when you got married? You must have been all messed up!” This was said to me by a friend who had had two divorces, an abortion and a couple of lived-in relationships. When I was planning my wedding, a concerned friend asked me if I was getting married because I was pregnant.
There are those of us who are caught in this transition and we don’t know how to cope with it. Recently someone called me to tell me how her act of thoughtfulness to someone in her time of grief was acknowledged with a little printed card that one buys at Hallmark. My friend belonged to my generation. Like me, she was taught that thank you’s are to be written by hand. I told her to be gracious and that not too many people go by that rule any longer. Personally, I have learned not to expect thank you’s any longer. Being thankful does not seem to be a practice among the 35 and younger. I don’t understand why people post Facebook pictures of their food at restaurants and at home. A young friend told me they do this to remember events. How meaningful is an event if it is only made memorable by the food served? Recently I saw a couple standing outside a grocery store. They were not talking to each other personally, but were texting each other on their phones. I’ve seen groups of high school students gathered at tables at Starbucks very quietly talking to each other through their smart phones – texting. I have been taught that looking a person in the eye when talking to him is the polite thing to do. Besides, the eyes reveal a lot about a person. Today I heard the former Senate Majority leader Harry Reid admit that he flat out lied when he accused Presidential candidate Romney on the Senate floor of not paying taxes. There was smugness in his confession and not a whit of guilt. And his fellow Democrats were defending this misbehavior with all their might.
Humility, integrity, honesty, Godliness, obedience to law, sanctity of life, respect for others, compassion – do these still matter?
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