The Vision of our Founders?

And the Constitution was read…at least most of it.

I’m in my hibernating mood, so I haven’t been watching TV. Maybe this story was on all day yesterday and people are sick of it. I just got my taste of it from the morning newspaper. I love this about the newspaper – that you can get a taste. You can scan the headlines. You can read, or not read, the articles below them.

You can do it at the kitchen table. Your partner’s got the local section or the sports, and you’re having your coffee and the kids or the grandkid (in our case) is eating his shredded wheat, and you can look up and make a comment, which I didn’t this morning, but did yesterday over Bert Blyleven. He’s in the paper again today but I haven’t read that section yet. I got paused by the reading of the Constitution.

I’m not getting terribly well informed by reading the St. Paul Pioneer Press, but I guess I must be getting as informed as I want to be. It’s enough to spark my thoughts or my indignation or at times a tear. I can always search for more when I can’t get enough, but usually it’s enough, or too much.

Anyway, you might say today’s story on the reading of the Constitution points out a philosophy of mine. Actually Rep. Elijah Cummings said it as good as I ever could. He said: “Imperfection is not to be feared.”

He was referring to the sections on slavery that were omitted from the reading. The part where it said slaves were to be counted as three-fifths of a person. He was making a case that being able to improve upon what the Founders started with was a “blessing.” I might say that if you’re going to haul out the Constitution as a document to live by in this century, then you haul it out – the whole thing – so you have to recognize that we can’t claim to stick by the Constitution (or anything else) unilaterally when some of it is wrong-headed.

My philosophy of imperfection isn’t about correcting mistakes of the past or condoning them. It’s more about how flawed human beings can still be leaders and poets and parents. How people without the personal constitution to succeed in the world as it is are still people. How the poor might not be so poor if they weren’t counted as overly flawed and in need of fixing, or due to enjoy three-fifths or less of the benefits of Constitutional freedom. The poor, of whatever race, religion, or sexual persuasion are in my view the new minority, those oppressed and denied what the wealthy can claim as their rights.

My point is that if you’re going to see slackers and the vulnerable and even the working class as so imperfect – imminently flawed for needing help once in a while – then lets start seeing the greedy that way too for causing the need. If you want to repeal health care reform…fine…start taking away the million dollar salaries of the CEO’s and the “right” of the medical supply companies and the pharmaceutical companies to make a fortune. Let’s call our leaders to lead, even while they hang on to their money and let’s point out the flagrant imperfection of 1 percent of the population controlling 40 percent of the wealth.

I hardly think that was the vision of our Founders.

St. Paul Pioneer Press, Reading of the Constitution triggers tussle. Jim Abrams, Associated Press. 1-7-2011, 4A.

It's About Character

I had a near meltdown yesterday. It had to do, on the surface, with my search for new employment. It makes me want to ask, “Is anybody else out there having a hard time of it?” Come on, you can admit to it. It’s about time poverty quit being something we’re embarrassed about, isn’t it? And how do we admit to that search for vocation if we don’t ever admit our discomfort with the options that seem to present themselves.

So – the option that seemed to present itself.

It was the first job possibility I’d gotten since my last temp-job ended. It was at the same horrible corporate place but a much worse job. One of those where you’re on the phone all the time harassing people for money. Being a dutiful member of a struggling family I was set to take this job (if it was offered) until I got the “job consideration” questionnaire, a 155-question personality test. I’d only answered the first five questions when I started to get teary eyed and then laid down on the couch, covered my face with a pillow, and wailed. I felt like I was about to sell my soul. How can they ask you this stuff for a measly little low-paying temp job (or any job)? How can they ask you to give your permission for them to check everything from your credit to your urine? What is going in America?

I hit the cancel button on the personality test and agonized the rest of the day over my idea that I just had to turn down this job. I didn’t talk to anyone about it, just moped around with a sorrowful look on my face and started crying again when I went to pick up my grandson at daycare and the chatty helper asked me how things were going. Of all the days to ask! There wasn’t another day he would have had to suffer through the awkwardness of leaking tears and a red nose.

I dropped my daughter and grandson off and went for a walk – or walked the trails at my favorite park until I found a semi-private place to sit and muse. I didn’t really make a decision, just drank in a little solitude in the midst of the chaos of my frustrations.

This morning I made the call, saying, “I just don’t think that job is right for me,” and was told there might be some others that would be a better fit. I felt vindicated in my decision. It wasn’t the end of the world. Another job would come along. But it was more than that. There was something about making that decision on my own, about choosing not to discuss it with my husband first, about deciding for myself what I could not do, that made me feel my spit and vinegar and got my energy flowing again.

I guess it made me feel too, the reasons I started this blog. Those reasons of the helplessness you can get to feeling with the “way things are” – the “way things are” being that ability of the corporation to big brother you right out of your integrity as a human being. I know there’s a move afoot to block the credit rating check – not really for reasons of recognizing it’s none of an employer’s business – but for reasons cited as fairness: maybe your credit has been adversely affected by the activities of your spouse. Or maybe your credit has been adversely affected by you not having a job! It’s crazy!

And you can’t tell me this state of affairs doesn’t have to do with the spiritual nature of us as people or as a nation. As Obama said about the healthcare debate – it’s about character.