Do you feel it too?

Last week, as I was leaving the health club where I hold membership, I was stopped at the reception desk by a middle-aged man - down on his luck from divorce and the loss of a prestigious job - who had taken an entry-level position as the club's front man. I could tell immediately that he stopped me for small talk, which, at the moment, was fine with me.

He asked me what I did for work, and, in the process of his brief interview, I revealed that I had studied both philosophy and theology while in college. This piqued his curiosity, especially when I shared that for a time I had seriously considered becoming an Episcopal priest.

In seconds, he volunteered that he was a product of parochial school and a Catholic college (this sort of confession happens almost immediately when I describe my religious background), and that he had often considered the priesthood as a young man. He also revealed that of late he was returning to "spirituality", and that he had been thinking a lot about the "end times."

"Have you ever heard of the Book of Revelations?" he asked me, brimming with sudden enthusiasm.

(I confess to the reader that I am too familiar with this sort of enthusiasm, and that I've long been wary of it.)

"Yes, of course, I've read it," I answered politely. I braced myself for a flurry of conspiracy theories; a blitz of prophetic utterances; a maelstrom of angst-laden visions. But no such portents came.

"You know," my interlocuter said, "as I read the news, and look at this time in history, I swear, events and the media are coming at us in such a way, that I feel like everybody is being forced to choose sides. Do you know what I mean? It's like you either have to choose side A or side B. You are either with us or against us. You either believe black, or white. I find it scary."

Admittedly, I was taken aback by this confession, in part because it had been initially connected to the Book of Revelations, and I expected dire prognostications. But I also confess that I found his statements disarming. Besides, I felt a strong kinship with this sort of anxiety.

"Yes, I know what you mean exactly!" I answered. Now I was brimming with enthusiasm.

Quickly we talked of issues from sexual morés to the Iraq War; to politics, and even the Schiavo case. In fact, it was the Schiavo case that had made me feel the same sort of black-and-white kind of uneasiness this man had mentioned.

I made the observation that I found it amazing that people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, both politically far to the left of me on most issues, had spoken so passionately and, in a sense, prophetically against disconnecting Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube. It made me wonder if, as issues in the public square become more radicalized, members of the left and right would find themselves choosing sides, not based on political ideology, but on religious principles; and that such people, once opposed on political fronts, were soon to be linked as brethren on religious fronts. I wondered if Revs. Jackson and Sharpton had made a choice that transcended mere allegiance to party; that they paid allegiance to God instead of any earthly constituency.

In short, there seemed then (and it seems now) that choosing sides is becoming less about a policy and more about a principle, a religious, ultimate principle.

My receptionist friend, perhaps also to the left of me on some issues, at last shared that he was relieved to hear that someone else experienced his sort of concern.

***

After reading Sunday's New York Times column by Frank Rich (Conservatives Love South Park), I am left with a sense that Mr. Rich, and his comrades on the left, are bent on not informing the public; they are bent on separating the sheep from the goats. Of course, in Mr. Rich's case, those on his side are the benevolent sheep. But Rich (again) is all about indictment, about impugning. He's not about arguing. There is no syllogism presented. Rather, he rips the right for being "faith-based", which means it's a bad thing. Sadly, and utterly blindly, Rich never notices, indeed, he cannot notice, that the left is also faith-based. We are all faith-based, for crying out loud! (Rich's comments remind me of a group of New Hampshire progressives who sneer at Christianity, as some of my acquaintances do, though each of them wears crystals around their necks, participate in Tarot Card readings, and reach deep into their previous incarnations for strength and guidance. I am making none of this up.)

That Rich plays the role of God, with a highminded view of his own discernment for the real, strikes me as scary, winnowing the threshing floor as he does each week in the Sunday paper. He may be separating the wheat from the chaff; he may be shepherding the sheep from the goats; but he may unwittingly be a Christ on the wrong side of humility, and the wrong side of the gatefold.

Choosing sides. Can you feel it?

In closing, and in honor of Mr. Rich's schizophrenic op-ed about "South Park" (which he describes as "funny", "obscene" and "anarchic") and the conservatives who (my gosh!) like it, I want to share a small but important memory.

In my hometown, in the mid-'90s when Newt Gingrich was prominent on the national scene, an interracial couple moved to town. I can still see the husband, tooling around in his Toyota Previa minivan, his beautiful black skin in stark contrast to the pasty white reality which is New Hampshire. In his van's rear window was a large, handmade sign that read, "Nuck Fewt." I remember this distinctly because my then 5-year-old son, who was a pretty good reader, asked me what the sign meant.

Of course, the man and his wife were and remain progressives, active local Democrats. No doubt they fear the religious right; no doubt they'd have the support of Mr. Rich. But one wonders what Mr. Rich would think of this couple, co-owners as they are of a business that offers Tarot Card readings (for a price) in downtown Depot Square. Surely Mr. Rich would not find them "faith-based".

Just the other day, at the town library, where a former US diplomat was speaking (against the Bush Administration, of course), my son and I saw a new bumper sticker. It wasn't handmade. It was beautifully designed, blue, white, and shiny. It said "Buck Fush." My son, now 15-years-old, understood it perfectly.

Yes, welcome to the very loving party of the left. It really is a party, all fun and tolerant. It's a good thing they're not the faith-based radicals ruining the world.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.