Remaining Uncomfortable with Easy Promises

I am still struggling to understand the real “why?” behind members of Congress being the first in line to receive COVID-19 vaccinations.  The official response from the government is that they were complying with a National Security Council directive which gave lawmakers priority in order to ensure continuity of our government.  That’s actually a bit of a faux-virtuous head-scratcher.  Washington Post writer Petula Dvorak opined even more forcefully, “it has a Lifeboat No. 1 paddling away from the Titanic vibe to it.”

In my own state, our leaders continue to cast aspersions on the federal government for not giving us enough COVID-19 vaccine; we rank 47 out of 50 on that scale.  I agree with them.  What our leaders have chosen not to mention is that we have only administered 67% of the vaccines that the federal government has given to us, and that unused doses are being thrown away.  That’s clearly a problem.  Our state’s response is not quite as bad as Lifeboat #1 filled with First-Class passengers and crew paddling away from the Titanic, but it does have a bit of a magician’s craft of diverting attention away from what’s really going on.  

In both instances, I find myself wanting more from our public servants.  As is nearly always the case, despite their rhetoric to the contrary, the poor, vulnerable, weak and voiceless are nearly always; well, last in line, and often without a voice or a vaccine.

As I try to make sense of these strange days, I find myself drawn to two completely different authors to help bring order to my confusion.  I have begun to dig into Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Between Two Millstones which is the Soviet dissident’s comprehensive autobiography about his years in exile.  Solzhenitsyn, who is best known as author of The Gulag Archipelago, was a giant in the human rights movement until his death in 2008.  Through his essays and novels, he unmasked the evils of Communism, particularly the way in which the ruling class party members managed to lookout for themselves at the expense of those on whose behalf Karl Marx ostensibly sowed the seeds of revolution.  It’s also true that Solzhenitsyn, even in exile, earned plenty of criticism for some of his more controversial observations about the West as was evidenced by the backlash he received from his 1978 Commencement address at Harvard University.

The other author I’m reading is Wendell Berry.  Given the good advice of an old friend, I have begun with Berry’s collection of Essays 1969-1990.  Unlike Solzhenitsyn, Berry grew up in America on a small Kentucky farm.  Today he is best known as “…an essential voice on the cultural and ecological crisis brought on by industrialization, technology, and the market economy” which is a publisher’s way of saying that he’s urging all of us to take a stab at living a bit more simply.  His often poetic critique of life in America emanates from a love of mostly forgotten rural places.  The essays are beautifully written, and sometimes difficult to read because he’s so often critically spot-on in his observations.  The Unsettling of America, written in 1977, should be required reading for all college students, or citizens, who want to experience a demonstration of thought-full citizen engagement.  

So why am I recommending a read of Solzhenitsyn and Berry—now?  The answer is really pretty simple: in different ways, both of these writers are developing themes we need to understand. But, honestly, they’re so erudite that we will not be reading their work in retail publications while sipping our morning coffee.  They require our focused attention, and both focus and attention are in seemingly short supply for many of us today.

Solzhenitsyn offers a caution to those of us in the West who are inclined to do a victory lap over the demise of Soviet Communism; people like me who still have a souvenir chunk of the Berlin Wall on the shelves of their office.  He reminds us that Westerners still have a long race to equality that is yet to be completed.  And Berry is a kind-hearted but firm farmer-poet who ardently believes that every one of us has “…a public responsibility.”  He reminds us that nearly all social systems are designed to conquer some body, and that “…surely there has never been a people more ominously and painfully divided than we are—both against each other and within ourselves.  Once the revolution of exploitation is under way,” he continues, “statesmanship and craftsmanship are gradually replaced by salesmanship.  Its stock and trade in politics is to sell despotism and avarice as freedom and democracy.”

The essence of my discomfort comes down to this:  that the members of Congress were the first in line to receive a vaccine isn’t what troubles me the most.  What troubles me is that our elected public servants, hiding behind the curtain of National Security, chose to care for themselves before exercising their power on behalf of the most vulnerable among us.  

The principle of servant leadership sets a much higher bar for those privileged to serve in Congress, the Governor’s office, or Legislatures.  When done rightly, these offices are callings from God.  Citizens need that kind of principled leadership because we are a country built on principles that matter deeply to us and to the world.  And what is preeminent among those American principles?  That all people are created equally.

So, in the words of farmer-poet, Wendell Berry, don’t let our leaders “…become comfortable with easy promises.”  We deserve better than that.  And, as a matter of public responsibility, they deserve our prayers, our critique and, when merited, our thanks and affirmation.