Our Shame

Hardly ever do I see starkly the disconnect between something that really matters and what I’m being fed by the media.

Usually my days play out like this: the media (NPR mostly) tells me what is important and what is urgent (always very, very urgent) and then I hear other people: the president, a congressman, a pundit, a historian, an industry executive, a Boston store owner, a spokesperson for the grain elevator, whomever, weighing in on what the media already told me.

Then this morning the president has a press conference and no one knows what it is going to be about. For a half hour while we wait there is speculation. It MUST be about Syria. It MIGHT be about the budget, immigration, the FBI… Already the news shows have their experts on various topics at the ready to discuss whatever he is going to say. What is he going to tell us on one of these important topics about which we already know so much?

And he says he will be closing Guantanamo Bay. And we remember we heard a little something somewhere about a hunger strike, but we couldn’t really listen because of our shame.

And we remember that Guantanamo is still there and he said he was going to close it four years ago but couldn’t and we can’t really think about it because we’re still afraid and we don’t know what to do.

And as soon as the words are out of his mouth, the media has questions– about Syria, about the budget, about immigration, about Bengazi ….

And I feel my shame all afternoon…

photo: “Suffering Servant” by Donald Jackson, from The Saint John’s Bible; http://saintjohnsbible.org