Who Are You?

Mack Hall

The Duke of Norfolk: “What sort of foolery is this? Does the King visit you every day?”

Thomas More: “No, but I go to Vespers most days.”

-- A Man for All Seasons

What one really wants to see at Thanksgiving is the President whippin’ out a .22 and shooting the turkey (the strutting bird, not the strutting reporter) on the White House lawn instead of pardoning it.

Perhaps a new ritual could be initiated – a poor worker could be dragged out in front of the White House and forgiven this year’s confiscatory taxes.

Presidents seem to be required to waste their time on purely secular rituals that carry little relation to the ancient unities of faith and civilization: pardoning turkeys, doing something with Easter eggs, throwing out the first baseball, and worshipping the Superbowl.

The last thing we expect to see of a president in the 21st century is participation in a real ritual such as attending Vespers, making the Stations of the Cross, carrying the Gospels in a procession, standing as a happy witness at a baptism, or pardoning a human prisoner with a brotherly admonition to go and sin no more.

The religious rituals are thin enough now, and as a result the secular ones are increasingly bizarre. Make no mistake about it, humans will have rituals as surely as they will have stories, and if the genuine rituals and genuine stories are discarded they will be replaced with Hallmark ones or worse.

Recently several Texas cheerleaders were indicted for tying and blind-folding younger cheerleaders and then throwing them into a swimming pool, a situation that could well have led to deaths. This humiliation and endangerment were part of, yes, an initiation ritual.

Let us consider the facts. First, the older girls came ‘round in cars early in the morning – also known as the middle of the night – to take away the younger girls, purportedly to breakfast. Second, the older girls bound the girls with duct tape. Third, the older girls blind-folded the younger girls. Fourth, the older girls threw the younger girls into a swimming pool, bound and blindfolded.

And few people saw any harm in this. It’s a ritual; we’ve always done it; if you don’t let us lie to you and humiliate you and endanger you we won’t be your friends.

American soldiers are in federal prisons for doing far less to murderers who strap bombs to women and children.

In a few weeks the Chief Justice of the United States will in a ritual swear in a new President, demonstrating once again that America changes governments without coups or putsches or mass executions of the losing side. The President will take an oath, a public oath, perhaps with his hand resting on a copy of the Bible. And that’s it. He won’t be blindfolded, he won’t be stripped naked, he won’t be bullied into drinking alcohol, he won’t be endangered by torture, and he won’t have to refer to bullies as his brothers.

Humans have a need to be accepted by other humans, and certainly the village grouch is to be pitied. But a human should also possess and good sense of self and a certain autonomy in matters of dignity and self-preservation.

If a group of people come to get you in the middle of the night, like the Venezuelan or Cuban secret police, they do not have your best interests at heart. If you have a choice, why go with them?

If someone blindfolds you, he is taking away your ability to see. Why?

If someone binds you, he is taking away your ability to move freely and your ability to defend yourself. Why?

If someone humiliates you so that you will be permitted to be his friend, well, why? Do you really want to be accepted by people suffering weird psycho-sexual hangups? Far, far better for such unhappy and inadequate people to disapprove of you!

As your old daddy told you, always remember who you are.

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