@MattWeber_ It was wonderful. Thank you for sharing your story of faith with us. Glad to decided against @sesamestreet
Posted on May 22nd 2013, 21:08
RT @asmcentee: Don't be an incognito Catholic. Share your faith, wherever you are. @MattWeber_ #NCCL2013
Posted on May 22nd 2013, 16:23
http://t.co/KHkAxAxYQf great resource from @MattWeber_ and @loyolapress #NCCL2013 #newevangelization
Posted on May 22nd 2013, 16:18
How do you talk about Religion? Start with a lighthearted story about yourself. - @MattWeber_ #NCCL2013 #newevangelization
Posted on May 22nd 2013, 16:06
Don't ever have the experience and miss the meaning. #catholicworldview #NCCL2013
Posted on May 22nd 2013, 15:30
Posted on May 22nd 2013, 15:19
|
  Sending Our Scapegoats Out To SeaFebruary 22nd, 2013Laying both hands on its head, he shall confess over it all the iniquities of the Israelites and their trespasses, including all their sins, and so put them on the goat’s head. He shall then have it led into the wilderness by an attendant. The goat will carry off all their iniquities to an isolated region. Leviticus 16:22 Mainstream and social media have been reporting endlessly about the recent cruise-turned-disaster of Carnival’s Triumph ship. An engine fire left the ship stranded and without power in the Gulf of Mexico. After days of miserable conditions such as sleeping on the decks of the ship so as to avoid the stench of feces and urine in the lower levels of cabins, passengers disembarked on Friday, February 15, to the inevitable onslaught of reporters wanting to get reactions from them.
No sooner had these exhausted, un-showered former passengers expressed their feelings about the week’s events did many people take to the internet to criticize them for lacking the proper perspective about their ordeal. “4200 Americans lacked access to toilets for 5 days,” one picture reads, “Meanwhile in real news- 2,500,000,000 people world wide lack basic sanitation every day.” The logic of such critique is clear: what these passengers endured was nothing compared to what the majority of the world endures on a daily basis, with no tug boat to pull them back to affluence.
I get it. There is something distasteful listening to otherwise well-to-do folks complaining about what may seem like was just a vacation gone wrong with rather miserable yet terminable inconveniences. But I also find the rampant self-righteousness of such critiques distasteful. What is particularly unbecoming of such social media “slacktivism” is that the speed with which we take to Facebook and Twitter to accuse perfect strangers of sins of which we are all guilty.
How relieved the Hebrews must have felt as their scapegoat walked out of their midst: There go our sins, they believed. The difference between the Hebrews and us, however, is that at least they recognized what they were doing. It is so easy to make fun of or chastise the tears of Triumph’s passengers, and yet, who are we to accuse them of lacking perspective? Who among us hasn’t complained about the wait time for health care so many lack? Left a bad tip for a waitress who just wasn’t fast enough to fill up our glasses with the precious water for which so many children thirst? Sent back the food of our third square meal of the day because it wasn’t just to our taste?
Lack of perspective and failure to live in solidarity is indeed sinful. But let us not congratulate ourselves for pointing out the sin of others when we’re really just sending our scapegoats out to sea. 
|
Nicely said. Hardship is hardship, after all, and responding to others with compassion is paramount to honoring our shared humanity. We share failed perspective, but far be it from us to judge the way others take personal responsibility, the way they respond… the splinter in their eyes is theirs to remove.
I read through your post and I found that something was gnawing at me. After re-reading once or twice more I realized that you’re calling these people out, publicly, on the Internet, as those who “took to the Internet” did to the passengers, and those passengers originally called out the cruise line. You’re tone is probably quite different, but tone by itself is not a standalone hallmark of righteousness or grace. And while this isn’t Facebook or Twitter, those people are “perfect strangers”, no? What makes your post different? What makes it like the sentiments you’re projecting upon those Hebrews watching there scapegoat trot off into the wilderness?
The bottom of all that gnawing, I realized, was the void left by no alternative, no instruction on how to move forward. Just like with the different tone, supplying a Scripture reference doesn’t make it different or better. I fear that without being given a godly substitute (pun intended) to self-righteousness most people will assume that the answer is be tolerant, forgetful, polite, and even (God forbid!) nice.
Christine raises the “log in your eye”; my mind had originally bubbled up with “cast the first stone”. Jesus has made it clear. But if we’re going to give up the practice of self-righteousness, what else do we do? The alternative cannot be to say it nicely, throw in a Scripture reference or turn a blind eye.
Thanks for your comments, Jason.
To follow your logic, though, would mean to put yourself in the same problematic situation, right? You are, in fact, calling me out after all
I wasn’t upfront enough about this in the post, I guess, but I meant to imply that the way to move forward is to reflect deeply on our own lack of perspective. I tried to place myself in the same category as the people posting such things on facebook (who were actually people whom I know, and not “perfect strangers.”) I do say that they are accusing those passengers of things for which we are ALL guilty.
One of the things that bothered me most about those posts on facebook and twitter was that I didn’t disagree with them entirely. I agree that we have a culture that can turn silly things into “suffering” while the rest of the world (and the less “important” people in our own culture) truly suffer. I am annoyed that Christians especially were trying to invalidate their experiences by bringing up other problems of justice. If lack of perspective is the problem, most of us who live in America are guilty of that. We shouldn’t pretend like we’re not.