The other day at church we had a meeting of what we call our "small group ministry" before the regular service. This is a kind of touchy-feeling session the first and third Sundays of each month of about eight people from the congregation designed to encourage bonding and community with the bodies that are sitting in the next pew in church.
In principle I approve of bonding and community, but in practice I'm not sure that I'm really built for it. For example, we recently filled out a list of questions meant to help reveal our inner selves to our neighbors--what was your childhood ambition, your wildest dream, your proudest moment, your first job, favorite movie, inspiration, soundtrack of your life, etc.
Sometimes I feel safer keeping my inner self tucked away in my innards--Dylan said it; "If my thought dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine."
I was a bit quirky but safe enough on some of the questions; childhood ambition--"President of the United States," favorite movie--"Duck Soup," first job--"getting my act together." You can read the whole list a couple of blog entries ago, if you want.
But where I got into trouble was "fondest memory." What popped into other people's heads was the puppy they got for Christmas, playing baseball with their dad, their mother singing in the kitchen. What popped into mine was the Kennedy assassination.
I was asked by the group to explain. First of all, I told them, that event certainly cured me of my childhood ambition. And indeed, generally, what I like most in life, and about my baby-boomer childhood in particular, are those moments that pulled the rug out from under me, that upset the apple cart, that made me wake up and think.
Imagine you're 13 years old, you've watched 55 episodes of Leave It to Beaver in a row and in the first five minutes of the 56th episode, Wally walks into the living room, reaches under the sofa cushions, pulls out a shotgun, and blows Ward Cleaver's head off. Then your own father switches off the TV, turns to you and says, "Well, son, you saw what happened there. What do you make of that?"
At the time, few people gave a straight answer to that question. Mrs. Kennedy, refusing to change her bloody dress, was probably on the right track. "Let them to see what they've done," she said bitterly.
Generally though, what people made of the event (those who didn't break into applause at the news) was a bunch of bullshit. There were lame comparisons between Kennedy and Lincoln, the Warren Commission was convened to report that everything was OK, and we went on into Vietnam.
Certainly at 13 I was pretty much in tune with these reactions. But as the Sixties unfolded, and the bullshit kept hitting the fan and getting sprayed across the room like the President's brains, year after year, again and again, it became clearer and clearer that reality was a lot less like the programmed safety of the first 55 episodes of Leave It to Beaver and more like the totally unexpected, disturbing, and astonishing uncertainty of the 56th.
The home of the free and the land of the brave was a bit like what it was billed to be, but also a lot like a chaotic, violent banana republic. My childhood was pleasant, but my adulthood would be more complicated and difficult. Life was good, but suffering was inevitable.
Illusions are pleasant, but dull, dishonest, and dangerous. As a country we've spent the last four decades trying to put the lid on the Sixties. That's what the Reagan and Bush years were all about. Me, I remember the murder of John F. Kennedy, and I remember it fondly.
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