“CAN’T GET NO SATISFACTION”

 

 

A post-homiletical discourse delivered by the Rev. Dr. James R. Beebe

Rector, St. Patrick’s Church, Incline Village, Nevada, February 28, 2010

 

When I'm drivin' in my car and that man comes on the radio; he's tellin' me more and more about some useless information supposed to fire my imagination;

When I'm watchin' my TV and that man comes on to tell me how white my shirts can be but he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me;
I can't get no…satisfaction.

* * * * *

 

     Have you heard from Roger and Jan lately?  I have.  Let me share their latest epistle with you [Garry Trudeau]:

 

Dear Readers:   

 

It’s April again, which means Jan and I have just returned to Mill Valley from another buying trek through the Annapurna, an ordeal that has left us spent, but elated.  As always, you, our valued catalog customers, were never far from our thoughts – especially the evening we lingered over jasmine tea with a Mahayana Buddhist monk at the Four Winds Monastery, perched precariously over a roaring tributary of the Ganges. 

 

As we sipped to the rhythm whirl of prayer wheels, I in my all-cotton, breathable Sahib Gear Punting Pants, Jan in her wind-resistant Amelia Earhart Aviator’s Bra, we couldn’t help noticing the elegant saffron robe that enveloped our host.  The rustic fabric, simple and unfussy, draped beautifully – perfect, as Jan remarked to his holiness, for curtains.

 

Well, one thing led to another, and before you knew it, we’d bought the monastery and put the monks to work weaving our new Katmandu Cottage Curtains (see page 32; also available in cranberry and moss).  We’re proud to have brought a traditionally indolent people into the new economy, giving them dignity and a chance to contribute to their country’s nascent GNP. 

 

And because we’ve taught the monks to scrupulously detoxify their dyes before dumping them upstream from the tiny, unspoiled Nepalese villages (whose honey-skinned children are so to die for that Jan and I actually adopted one), your purchase of our hand-stitched window dressing will help save the planet for future generations.

 

Sometimes, when Jan and I are raft-drifting down the languid Orinoco, where the only sound is the mesh lining in Jan’s flight vest wicking moisture away from her skin, we’ll gaze up into the Indigo Venezuelan night and thank the stars for our large, loyal customer base                                      

 

                                                                                    Best regards, Roger and Jan.

 

 

     We are in a desperate battle.  The stakes are higher than you can imagine.  One Rutgers professor described it like this:  “Go into a Protestant church in a Swiss village, a mosque in Damascus, the cathedral at Reims, a Buddhist temple in Bangkok – you know from one pious site to the next you are in a distinctive culture. 

 

Then sit in a multiplex cinema – or, much the same thing, visit a spectator sports arena or a mall or a modern hotel or a fast-food establishment in any city around the world – and try to figure out where you are.  You are nowhere.  You are everywhere.  Inhabiting an abstraction.  Lost in cyberspace.

 

You are chasing pixels on a Nintendo:  the world surrounding you vanishes.  You are in front of or in or on MTV:  universal images assault the eyes and global dissonances assault the ears in a heart-pounding tumult that tells you everything except which country you are in.  Where are you?  You are in McWorld.”

 

     We are in a desperate battle.  The stakes are higher than you can imagine.  And we’re in so much trouble that we don’t even know we’re in trouble.  And, besides that, we don’t have anyone to blame.  One observer said that it would be silly to speak of conspiracy or some ruthless political ambition at work here.  McWorld runs on automatic pilot:  that’s the whole point of the market.  The influences it brings to bear are not mandated by the imperative to control, only the imperative to sell.

 

     McWorld is the worst kind of slavery, for we are both perpetrator and victim.  Our appetite for consumption is out of control.  And we can’t turn to government regulation or education or revolution for help.  From the perspective of economics alone, ethics are irrelevant – all commodities are the same, whether bubble gum or Bach

     It’s about 1350 B.C.E. or so. A man, Avram, lives in Sumer with his family.  As the story goes, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing….” (Genesis 12:1-2)

     Avram is in a desperate battle.  The stakes are higher than he can imagine.  He’s a Sumerian.  He doesn’t know anything else.  He lives in a society that is on automatic pilot.  It’s a world of buy and sell.  It’s a world of same stuff, different day.  It’s a world in which people receive little in the way of moral direction – let alone meaning – for their lives.  His religion is all about “what’s in it for me?”

     Avram is in a desperate battle.  The world of Sumeria is the worst kind of slavery, for its citizens are both perpetrators and victims.  Their appetites for consumption are out of control.  They can’t turn to government regulation or education because those are the very forces that are reinforcing this pedestrian, meaningless, cyclical existence.  From the perspective of economics alone, ethics are irrelevant.  All commodities are the same, whether cloth for weaving or pagan statuettes. 

     Then, one night, Avram has a dream.  It’s just a voice, really.  And this voice is telling Avram to leave McWorld.  To travel to a place where everything is new.  To a place of promise.  To a place where you knew you were heading towards something.  Something new:  relationship with the Divine. 

     And you know what?  “Avram went.”  It’s remarkable.  It’s revolutionary.   He had no way of checking out the directions or the Director.  He had no scriptures to confirm it.  There simply was no tradition of hearing voices in the night, let alone doing what they tell you.  Abram’s entire wealth and legacy was tied up in Sumeria.  There was nothing, seemingly, in it for him.  And yet, he went.

        Avram’s willingness to go changed the world.  God did make a great nation of him, just like He said.  And we are all, at our roots, Jewish.  [Thomas Cahill]  “We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes.  Most of our best words, in fact:  new, adventure, surprise -- person, freedom, spirit -- faith, hope, and justice……are the gifts of the Jews.”

 

 

Dear Roger and Jan: 

 

Please cancel my subscription.  I am no longer interested.  Gotta get me some…satisfaction.