THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Relax, it's not a sermon. I'm not talking about the usual commandments, I'm talking about the Ten Commandments of The Road, issued a few weeks ago by the Vatican. Really, these new commandments are simply a launch pad for other discussion. For those who don't know, the Vatican recently issued a list of ten commandments to be applied to drving, and, I guess, vehicle ownership in general. Things such as not owning a vehicle as a symbol of power, wealth or status. Also, that vehicles should not be used as a place of sin. Good luck. The list is too abstract to recite verbatim and besides, it's not the list itself or the arrival of same from left field that worries me. It's the underlying message from the Vatican that has me nervous. Afterall, when has the Vatican issued any statements regarding vehicle use or ownership? Don't forget to keep your "Vatican Winter Driving Tips" handbook with you during the winter months. These Ten Commandments of the road signify, I believe, a deeper and much more ominous message from the Pope. The message? "We've given up on the big issues...from now on expect cleaning tips, arts and crafts and a general Martha Stewart type feel to our statements...We're packing it in. Good Luck and Bona Fortuna!"
Laugh if you must, but it wouldn't surprise me, nor would I blame them, if this was their subliminal message to the world. In just the last few weeks, consider this sampler of the misfits amongst us. In Conway, NH last week Michael Woodbury, 31, of Windham, Maine shot and killed three innocent people at a sport supply store in this quiet northern town. Just released from a five year stint in the Maine State Prison in May he was quick to point out that he had warned officials that he should not be released into society. What a surprise. It's someone else's fault. He embarked on a crime spree that covered most of the East coast, robberies, a car theft and arson. No remorse whatsoever and indeed, after being quickly apprehended, he began complaining about the treatment he was receiving while being held. Note to self: "Don't forget to cry for Michael later".
Murder-suicides are so common that they barely make the news anymore, garnering the same press attention as yard-sale announcements. In Wichita, Kansas a young mother is stabbed to death in a 7/11 store. Patrons who were shopping stepped over her as she tried three times to get herself up and then collapsed. One young girl stopped to snap pictures of her with a cell phone. Let me repeat that...stopped to take pictures of a young mother bleeding to death in the aisle of a 7/11, but couldn't take the time to dial 911 on that same phone. It's hard to believe, isn't it, because for most of us, all of these occurences are so outside anything we would ever consider that it is, simply, hard to believe they really happened. But they did, and do, and will, with ever more frequency because we are all becoming numb to it. The stories are tiny words on pages or sound bites on any of a plethora of cable news outlets. They just carry less and less weight and, I believe, it is human nature to be less and less moved by it. It takes a conscious effort to stop and realize how brutal it all is.
Media swarmed the story of Chris Benoit, the wrestler who mudered his wife and young son. Puzzled faces and wrinkled brows prevailed but again, for most of us, there is no mystery. It's a disturbing lifestyle, a disturbing sport, if you can call it that, and steroid and drug use is the accepted norm. I was amazed at the ability of some news folks to feign surprise so realistically. Or maybe, they really are surprised.
Thinking people are not surprised however, as the escalating trend of violence in this country is reaching critical mass. I don't hear a single presidential candidate talking about it. I hear few politicians talking about it at all. In Boston neighborhoods, it is becoming a daily event. Random shootings, children shooting children, a case of child abuse last week so abhorrent it literally made me weep. A boyfriend who chewed off the upper lip and part of an ear of his girlfriend's 3 year old daughter. DSS did what they do best, dropped the ball, and it wasn't untill her dentist reported that she was covered with bite marks that something was done. As it turns out, the abuse has been ongoing and where was the mother? On the lam with her stellar boyfriend...they had left the child behind unattended. Is it getting through to anyone how surrounded we all are by an entirely different type of human?
It's too soon to tell whether the good among us will band together to try and make it all stop, try to get to the root of the problem. I fear, that like the Vatican, we will retreat to the insipid and revel in it, too exhausted, too overwhelmed or maybe just too selfish to try and change it all. In the meantime, we can all take great comfort in knowing that our highway travels should soon become a festival of courtesy and friendly gestures now that we all know, beyond question and without doubt, that Jesus would not flip-the-bird.
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