Editorials
Ten Commandments for a New Decade
Ted Schmidt, Toronto
Volume 34 Issue 4, 5 & 6 | Posted: July 2, 2020
1. Thou shalt radically limit the Candyland in your hand. This only leads to soft slavery and false consciousness. The world does not need a new picture of you.
2. Park the carnival and the circus. The Roman poet Horace died 4 years before Jesus was born and he saw through the diversions Augustus the emperor provided for the masses—the horror show of the Colisseum. He wrote Odi profanum vulgus et arceo. (I cant stand the common horde and I avoid them.) It's an old trick employed by the powerful and the smart Romans were onto it. Juvenal the Roman satirist who died around 100 CE pointed out the same nonsense. The people can be diverted with “bread and circuses” (panem et circuses).
1. Thou shalt radically limit the Candyland in your hand. This only leads to soft slavery and false consciousness. The world does not need a new picture of you.
2. Park the carnival and the circus. The Roman poet Horace died 4 years before Jesus was born and he saw through the diversions Augustus the emperor provided for the masses—the horror show of the Colisseum. He wrote Odi profanum vulgus et arceo. (I cant stand the common horde and I avoid them.) It's an old trick employed by the powerful and the smart Romans were onto it. Juvenal the Roman satirist who died around 100 CE pointed out the same nonsense. The people can be diverted with “bread and circuses” (panem et circuses).
Cicero the great Roman orator and defender of the Republic was murdered by Marc Antony 40 years before Jesus’ birth.
He too saw what happens when people “sell their rights as free men for full bellies…”
Short hand: 1 million people lined up in Toronto for the Raptors (American mercenaries) and Doug Ford is our Premier. Love sport, forget Sportworld and Celebrity world.
“As the Israelites left Egypt and slavery you too can leave zombieland for richer pastures of human interaction. The people have been programmed to love their bondage and are left to clutch only mirage-like images of freedom, its fables and fictions. The new slaves are linked together by vast electronic chains. Their desires are programmed, their tastes manipulated, their values set for them.”(Gerry Spence)
3. Pay attention. The novelist William James observed “when we reach the end of our days, our life experience will equal what we have paid attention to, whether by choice or default.” Lord Donald Soper (above) the brilliant Methodist preacher (70 years!) of Hyde Park, London when asked if he had any advice for the next generation: “Yes, read a newspaper every day.” And buy one each day. The Fourth Estate is a necessary barrier to fascism. Reading online is for skimmers and those who do not understand the role of the countervailing force to greed and injustice. Joe Attkinson the founder of the Toronto Star correctly laid out the role of the paper: Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
This leads to the fourth commandment.
4. Thou shalt embrace the incarnation. “As God became human in Jesus so he takes residence in our flesh (carnes, Latin) our body-when we reach out and embrace real people who weren’t created for your benefit. Get beyond the fleeting “online community. Know thyself and what is eternally valuable. “Fame,” Horace Greeley reminded us, “is a vapor, popularity is an accident and money takes wings. The only thing that endures is character.”
5. Thou shalt not fear failure as it is part of life. Original sin is a reality. Chesterton reminded us: “Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” We are a fallen but graced humans. Immanuel Kant: “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” We are all wounded healers. Our injuries define us as as much as we are our successes.” (Barbara Kingsolver)
6. Celebrate the sacramental view of life. The world is one grand sacrament.
As Richard McBrien reminded us a sacramental perspective is one that sees God in and through all things: in other people, communities, movements, events, places, objects, the world at large, the whole cosmos. The visible, the tangible, the finite, the historical—all these are actual or potential carriers of the divine presence. For Catholicism,and Christianity in general therefore, all reality is sacred. That old rascal Zorba was right “God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.” (Nikos Kazanzakis)
7. Exercise your priesthood. Confer the sacraments of friendship, the power of tears in mourning, the power of solidarity in social movements, the gift of humour which saves us from being consumed by righteous anger, the radical care for our Mother, holy creation. St. Francis referred to Brother Sun, Sister Moon. Don Francks, fellow earthling, embraced “the winged ones, the finned ones.”
8. Say goodbye to tribalism, the battle waging today. The great failure of education, Norman Cousins reminded us, “is that it has made people tribe conscious but not species conscious.”
My country, my people, my country. There is but one people, the human race. One country our planet. There is no chosen people. all are beloved.
9. Kiss the Lone Ranger goodbye.The masked bandit died long ago just after Ayn Rand and her posse of individuals rode off into the sunset with much of the common good. Join with others in groups to resist with patience over the long haul. “To carry the cross as Jesus carried it, then, means taking up a solidarity with the crucified of this world — with those who suffer violence, who are impoverished, who are dehumanised.
10. Stand up and speak for those who lack voice. “The most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening.” said Rosa Luxembourg.
Remember that: Where you stand will determine what you see; Whom you stand with will determine what you hear; What you see and hear will determine what you say and how you act.
Ted Schmidt and his many friends resting on library shelves waiting for you.
Ted Schmidt, Toronto