Ben Camino's Ironic Isolation Meditation #2

The Fake New

According to James Taylor, there's hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things to come. According to Ben Camino, those hours are more likely, these days, spent talking to someone trying to help you figure out how to get your computer to work so that you can be physically isolated but technically connected to the distanced people our there who crave your wisdom. Or, at least, pay for it with tuition money.

You know the sad thing about that opening paragraph is that it falls so short of what I read on Sunday. The gospel reading was about the man born blind healed byJesus. And the other reading was from Saint Augustine's commentary on John, especially about the blind man passage. It was brilliant. Not just smart. Not just profound. But worth biting, chewing, and eating. It reminded me, as things tend to do since my vocation includes reading the compositions of incredible writers, of how deeply satisfying rhetoric can be. Even if you don't actually believe what the particular saint/rhetorician might be saying (which is often the case with me and Saint A). But that's why some of us (or at least one of us) gorge on gorgeous rhetoric even as we keep an ironic eye out for lumps of meaning we'd rather not swallow. How's that Saint A?  I know, I know, it would sound better in Latin. 

But seriously, before I leave this digression, if you can get you eyes or even better your ears on that gospel reading and that passage from Saint Augustine, you too will stand amazed in the presence of human (and maybe divine) rhetorical flourishing. Call me, I'll read it to you (#999-999-9999).

Anyway(s), back here in the 21st Century, I spent four hours or so today on my phone and computer, with an expert helper also on her phone and somehow (magic?) on my computer,  trying to figure out why I couldn't access my "My Documents" folders or any of the thousand or so documents from the Center where I work (yes, Ben, has a daytime job).  

For a moment I dozed off and dreamed that heaven would probably look a lot like a completely wired bright shiny world in which all our pastors will have shaved heads, wear flannel shirts and jeans, play Epiphone guitars, sing sort of like Creed, and stream their "hey guys" selves right into my beautiful HP screen forcing me to do happy dances with all my virtual friends. I woke up screaming no. I'd rather go blind. Or go to hell as the case may be. 

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Now, exhausted from all that computer agony not to mention the dream, neither I nor my expert helper have my computer problems all figured out. Some of them though, thanks to her. And I hope now that tomorrow I will start working on what I was going to work on today -- bringing the Renaissance and the works of Shakespeare to my dispersed, distanced apprentices through the miracle of Zoom. Pray for me. 

Don't get me wrong, the person helping me was amazingly helpful. And gracious. And barely suppressing things like "cuss cuss Bill Gates; cuss Micro cuss Soft cuss." Or maybe that was just his ironic highness's interpretation of her frustrated mutterings. I know she did complain at least once about having to "guess what Bill is thinking" while working her/our way through the maze. I just wish Lewis Carroll were here to write a long poem about it. Wabberjocky, you say?

It's a brave new world with all this technology, isn't it friends? Not like those horrible medieval times (that Ben Camino teaches people about) when people thought that the world was flat, that sex was for having children, that bread fell from the skies (at least on the rich or the Israelites), and that music was to be played live, preferably on bagpipes and sackbutts. Heck, I hear that when times were bad, sometimes people would even just step out on their balconies and serenade their neighbors. That was back before science and technology had created a utopia of peace, joy, and justice. Yet. Shoot, those people were so vulnerable, they even didn't have a vaccine against. . . . anything. 

Famous last words here dear readers-- I'm going to keep this short. Yes, of course, we have technology. New technology. A lot of technology. All the best technology.  And yes, I'm glad that right now scientists are at work on a vaccine and I'm VERY glad that we know there are such things as vaccines. Still, Science, as I pointed out by ironically stating the opposite in the previous paragraph has NOT succeeded, don't you agree, in creating a utopia. A world of peace, joy, and justice. Not seeing it. Nor has it saved us from the plague. Our plague. The kind of thing we've heard about but most of us (except for epidemiologists) didn't really believe in. 

Science isn't enough against the unknown. And it never has been. And it's always been the most fake of fake news to think that it is. The ultimate fake news is what I call the Fake New. That everything now or ever in this  bitch of a world under the moon goddess and her hungry wolves will be NEW in some ultimate sense. Oh, I know that Karl Marx, Chairman Mao, and some wacky cult leaders with whatever latest revivals came along thought so, said so. In some cases, they got out the koolaid or the Killing Fields and tried to make it happen. The Fake New is that we are a superior race to the hard and tough and strong and faithful and hopeful people who lived through all kinds of terrors and horrors and dangers (we are bracketing these issues tonight, dear Lord, but we still have some questions worth asking) as long as there have been people. 

And, as in the medieval picture above, these amazing folks, with really cool hats, walked on the tight rope (or whatever that is) over the abyss and . . . smiled? And danced? And held hands? 

If we are, indeed, new and different from them, are we sure that's a good thing? The Fake New is the ultimate fake news. We are human. We are contingent beings. We will perish. We are subject to virulent forces, both seen and unseen. Yes, we have figured some things out. And, I for one am very glad we have. I am presently practicing strict physical distancing. Even isolation. Because I know that I am in the "risk category" (more than one actually). And that, regardless, if I get the virus and somehow survive it, I might pass it on to someone else who won't. And I'm listening to science. Because science (or something like) is pleading with us, for now, in a kind,humble, gracious, parental voice. Please. We think this will help. We are developing tests. We hope there will  be a vaccine. We do NOT know everything, but we are learning all we can. We are human too.  

I sometimes get so negative about Scientism, the idea that all our new ideas and new technology will necessarily bring in utopia (and we respond, genetic mutations, atomic bombs, animal testing, etc.), that I forget to remember this. Science is also a source of hope. After all, science is simply the word for knowledge. And we know that though THIS enemy seems invisible, it's not really invisible. We just have to learn how to see it and to understand it. And we need time and the best tools of science to do that. 

Folks brought up on the fake news of the Fake NEW have learned to think, perhaps some still think, that we are a different order of being. That the world is just going to shape itself to our every whim. Friends, it has NEVER done that. It has always been dangerous. 

On the other hand, human beings have, at their best, and over a long, long history, demonstrated an ability to have hope in the midst of some pretty bad circumstances and to work together to protect, heal, and survive. This is not going to be one of those -- well there's a silver lining in this dark cloud so let's all just learn an inspirational lesson -- TED talks. I've been seeing some "count your blessings" posts and I struggle with them. Maybe that's just me. My point is this. It's not new, although it is different. And we aren't the NEW WORLD we sometimes thought we were. We have always been on a tightrope. We are on a tightrope. But with other people, maybe even smiling, maybe even dancing, maybe even holding hands. 

And, thanks to Bill Gates and my computer expert helper, for the time being we can and WILL do it in a different way. A kind of new way (although you wouldn't convince Saint Benedict and his sister, Scholastica of that), as long as we don't think new means better. Here we go. Together in a  necessarily distanced dance, over the abyss, virtual hand in virtual hand, singing from our  balconies, looking into each other's eyes even if through windows, giving each other all the hope we can. 

Be safe friends. And pray for me. 
Ben Camino