“Know also that wisdom is like honey for you: If you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off”. Proverbs 24:14
It is August 1962 and a bunch of young boys are enjoying the summer heat. Some are swimming at Phillips’ Pool, in a pond or even in a river. Others work in their families businesses just to keep the family going. I’m camping in Dilly Dally Valley, hanging out with my brothers and friends, smoking corn silk, shooting squirrels, frying blue gills and maybe drinking beer. The lucky guys are enjoying female company at the Covedale, in a park, or anywhere they can (living in the Mack this idea is still only a dream but obviously percolating). This was our summer of contentment and recreation, rarely did one travel to a vacation destination given the size of most Catholic families.
National and World news was primarily being delivered via the Enquirer and Post and the Catholic Telegraph. My focus was on the Cincinnati Reds; Vada Pinson, Jim O’Toole, Bob Purkey and the team. Desperately trying to collect the baseball cards of the star athletes. I had an awareness that some great issues confronted the country both domestically and internationally; the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War and Civil/Voting Rights were becoming a significant national issues. In 1962 laws still existed that prevented African Americans from voting. In 1961 the first American soldier died in Vietnam. During this same time period, feminism was finding it roots (I was to become a beneficiary of the sexual revolution is so many ways). Medicare did not exist, the family and community took care of the disabled, the elderly and the impoverished. Notwithstanding these issues, I, along with many of you were looking forward to that day after Labor Day when we would become a student at Elder. The anticipation was overwhelming, we would now be part of the tradition and spirit that embodied the school.
Issues were difficult then but seemed solvable. We believed that with talent, perseverance and Judeo-Christian values anything could be accomplished. We embraced the inaugural address of our new (Catholic) President John F, Kennedy, in which he spoke these words;
“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe–the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.”
It is now over Fifty Years later and we find ourselves on the same doorstep of the human conditions; poverty, fear and disenfranchisement. These issues exist in spite of all the amazing technological advancements. A wounded soldier is no longer rehabilitated, but “restored”, with fully functional artificial limbs. An older adult is ambulatory because of a mechanical hip.
Heart stents enable (implanted less invasively) one to live a fuller life. Technology assures us that we have the opportunity to be entertained whenever we wish, whatever our interests. And of course we are always accessible and in touch via smart phone wizardry.
Perhaps this dependency upon the machines and robots so prevalent in our daily lives, has influenced our judgement and our connection to one another. Apparently we have come to rely on and believe in the notion that machinery can fix whatever ails us. Consequently and perchance because of our reliance on hardware, many believe that the machine of government, the nation-state, is capable of fixing these pervasive human conditions and the bigger government becomes the more it can fix.
However our experiences over the past fifty years belies this notion and gives deeper meaning to Kennedy’s words about the subjecting oneself to the “generosity of the state.” Have human conditions improved? What and where are the achievements after almost fifty years of; the war on poverty and drugs? Have city’s infrastructures improved, explain East Price Hill? Are we more secure today because of government, if so, why are so many people packing a gun? These are just some of the complexities and colorization of present day national issues.
Maybe it requires that technology and government be subservient to human interaction, with more reliance on each other and less on machinery. Encouraging and promoting civil discourse between those people of goodwill and faith whose influence is from the “hand of God” and not from the handout of government? This also is a challenge that needs to be conquered.