November 13, 2016: “Penn’s Woods”
In East of Eden, John Steinbeck gives us a magnificent, grand telling of the American story--of the human story--of family, of the land, of the promise, of goodness, of evil, and of goodness again. In one of the most important scenes, Samuel Hamilton, Adam Trask, and Lee, stumble into a deep discussion of scripture. Lee, Trask’s servant, becomes the wise exegete:
...this was the gold from our mining: 'Thou mayest.' The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in 'Thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word timshel—'Thou mayest'—that gives a choice. For if 'Thou mayest'—it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.' That makes a man great and that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.
The story goes on through many hopes and follies, and in dramatic fashion ends with a dying Adam, who gives his guilt-ridden son Cal a blessing and a final word: Timshel.
It may be fitting to reflect on the life-blood of a state as if it were the life-blood of a single living, breathing human being. State as macrocosm of a person and as microcosm for an entire country. In particular, Pennsylvania.
While in the fourth grade at Saint Jude’s Catholic School, I fell in love with my home state, and for good reason. Social studies that year focused specifically on Pennsylvania history and geography. I naively thought that every other fourth-grader in the U.S. had the same textbooks and likewise studied Pennsylvania history. And, what a rosy history it was! William Penn and the Quakers having been persecuted in England and landing there in “Penn’s Woods,” playing nice with the Lenni-Lenape and allowing settlers of other religions--including us Catholics--to stay there. The grand old men gathering in Philadelphia in 1776 and declaring independence from cruel England. Betsy Ross dutifully sewing Old Glory. Washington and his men wintering in Valley Forge. Washington and his men crossing the Delaware on Christmas day. In 1787, the grand old men gathering again and founding and fathering some more--this time, the Constitution. In between and after, Ben Franklin flying a kite and thereby inventing electricity and establishing fire departments and post offices on the side. Almost eighty years of peace, prosperity, and enlightenment. Then, slave-free and egalitarian Pennsylvania repelling General Lee’s rebellious and slavery-loving army at the Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln later coming to consecrate the land with his address. Then, followed another 120 years of peace, prosperity, and enlightenment. We were the “Keystone State.” Without the keystone, the whole project--all the colonies--would have collapsed.
Yet, as I grew into a young man--a microcosm of my state and of my country--the stories from those grade school lessons became more fable than gospel. The deconstruction of historical myths ensued, thanks to good high school teachers and college political science courses. Studying abroad in Cairo while the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 hastened that deconstruction. Then, my time in the US Navy serving under my own Captain Ahab further decimated the old faith, and I became addicted to critical history, which became the new faith. Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States became gospel, for instance. Part of it was the search for truth, but part of it was admittedly the search for an identity. I now knew that this nation was founded on the extermination of the native population and its wealth built on the enslavement of blacks, and its continued power stemmed from imperialism and neo-imperialism. End of story. As for Pennsylvania, I now knew that the true spirit of Independence Hall was in denying certain groups rights and privileges. I now knew that the Underground Railroad did not lead runaway slaves to the promised land of Pennsylvania but rather through the state and well North so that self-serving Pennsylvanians would not catch and send back fugitive slaves. And, it felt good to know that and say that and judge others who didn’t know that or believe that.
In the process of cementing this new faith, I threw out many proverbial babies with much proverbial bathwater. One incidental casualty of that house-cleaning was the white suburban town where I grew up: Chalfont. My logic was shaky, but as the Iraq war unfolded and many people at home cheer-led that war, I blamed them. And it fit nicely with the new faith that I had gained. In my mind, the Chalfonts of the world--and the Saint Jude Catholic Churches and Schools of the world--had rubber-stamped the invasion of Iraq along with all the previous imperial wars and institutionalized racism. And that, to me, was unforgivable. Thus, even though I had a happy home and upbringing, I swore I would never live in Chalfont or any place like it.
As life progresses, however, I have slowly come to learn that no town, no state, no country, no institution, no person, including myself, is wholly bad. Nor is any wholly good. Having already thrown out the original dogmatism, I’ve now begun to move away from the new dogmatism that I had replaced it with. The truth is somewhere in between. For this movement, I credit marriage and family; I credit good literature and, yes, good television; and I credit contemplation and silence. That is, in silence, we dig through the shadow impulses deep within, which coexist next to the beauty inside of us. In good fiction and well-written history, we see both darkness and light--both genuine yearning and then utter stupidity or even meanness--in our favorite characters, and it is like looking into a mirror. And, nothing, thankfully, is unforgivable.
One final contributor to this latest movement has been Chalfont, ironically. Eleven years ago, my parents moved away to another suburb of Philadelphia. But, in an interesting convergence of circumstances several years ago, my then-future in-laws moved to Chalfont of all places. And so, in the past two years, my wife and I have been making regular trips there. I didn’t really notice it growing up, and during my hasty and deliberate shedding of my suburban upbringing, I would never have admitted it: it is beautiful. Most of the drive there, leaving the concrete jungle of Newark, New Jersey, is beautiful, too, especially when we cross the bridge from Frenchtown to Pennsylvania and drive south along the Delaware.
I would never have predicted it, but we got married at Saint Jude’s. We held the reception at a Mennonite-owned farm that my mom and I used to run by when I was in high school. I now occasionally walk to the subdivision where we lived, and I pass my old house. Instead of hating the spoiled and sheltered and naive me that grew up there, I am filled with joy and nostalgia. There’s Peace Valley Park. Tabora Farms. Rolling hills and stone houses and old farms in between, some having disappeared by new subdivisions but some still holding on. People lived there then. People live there now. While my Pennsylvania perspective has an eastern bias, the same goes true for the rest of the state. A train ride on Amtrak’s “Pennsylvanian” route reveals how beautiful this land is and how rich its history is with both triumph and struggle: heading out from 30th Street Station in Philly, later the farms of Amish country, then the mighty Susquehanna cutting through the state capital, the old mill towns of Altoona, Johnstown, and Latrobe, the trees of the Allegheny mountains, and finally to the hills and bridges of resurrected Pittsburgh. A ride across I-80, especially in the fall, will do similar good things for the soul. The land is central. Place matters. People live there. And, while none of those people is wholly good, none of them is wholly bad either. Everything is life, and all of that is ok.
While my very early history lessons of Pennsylvania were too good to be wholly true, there was truth in them. While the Lenni-Lenape would probably tell a different version of the story, the Quakers were relatively tolerant. Quakers would later become some of the first whites to fight for the abolition of slavery, while most other Christians either spread slavery or ignored it. Quaker men and women would undergird the Seneca Falls convention for women’s rights in New York. And, while the Declaration of Independence did call Native Americans “savages,” it did at the same time contain some of history’s most inspiring words. While the Constitution enshrined that black slaves were only three-fifths of a person, it left a window for us to amend and remedy that, albeit embarrassingly many years too late. And while the Union army contained no saints and its cause was not necessarily abolition, it defeated an army at Gettysburg whose cause was secession and who seceded necessarily to continue the institution of slavery. Despite our best efforts to block them, “the better angels of our nature” do occasionally triumph. This is true of men and women, of Pennsylvania and other states, of the U.S. and other countries.
On Tuesday, November 8, 2016, the majority of Pennsylvania voters cast their ballots for Donald J. Trump for President of the United States. Donald Trump: A bigot. A xenophobe. A swindler. A buffoon. A demagogue. A misogynist. A bully. A reality television star. A high school sophomore. Someone who bragged about sexual assault. Someone who is entirely unfit to hold the office. Someone who denies that climate change is happening. Someone who would like to see more nuclear weapons in the world. Or, even worse, perhaps someone so maniacal that he would just say those things to get elected.
Pennsylvania’s twenty electoral votes landed in Trump’s final tally. Majorities in other states--although not the majority of the country, mind you--voted for Trump as well. As a result, he will be our next president. The other states, I expected. It’s always the other to blame. But, I did not expect my Pennsylvania.
We all have prejudice inside us. We all have racism, sexism, pettiness, lust, fear, and meanness inside us. We almost always do certain things because our ego is in charge, and we want to inflate that ego. But, as humanity’s evolution requires, we are supposed to name those things, hold them in the light, and let them pass away. They do not define us. They do not own us. We should die daily to our daily pettiness. None of us is wholly bad, and none of us is wholly good. We have the ability to choose the good. Timshel. And, forgiveness is always an option.
Donald Trump amplified the worst in ourselves. He, too, the microcosm for a state and for a country. By rallying the dark impulses inside each of us and thus comforting us for a short while--like drugs do, like pornography does--he made many of us feel good. In particular, the “white working class” of Pennsylvania voted for a man who made his fortunes cheating the likes of them. But, it wasn’t just the white working class in the middle of the state. Many middle class whites in beautiful Bucks County and even non-whites voted for him too.
And so, the election returns trickled in, and I watched with shock as the Keystone State turned red for Trump. And then, the rest of the swing states. I slipped back into that dogmatic perspective of my lost state in my broken country. There was anger, judgment, and defeatism: “This is predictable. We get what we deserve. Stupid, f_____g racist president for a stupid, f_____g racist country.”
Now, five days later, despite all evidence, I’m moving towards hope. Not a naive optimism, but a dark trust. Post-election, we still have the choice. Timshel, Pennsylvania. Timshel, America. We did not have to do this. Still, we do not have to do this. Nothing was or is inevitable. We have the choice. Perhaps the better angels of our nature will break through. We are not destined either way.
And Donald. Even though he’s given us little proof that any wisdom or enlightenment or goodness might shine through in his presidency, we say in a great act of faith: Timshel, Donald. Timshel. The fate of our most vulnerable, and the fate of our shared home depends on his understanding this and our commitment to it. We will try to force his hand. History will judge him and us.
