You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, “Who is that man?”
You try so hard
But you don’t understand
Just what you’ll say
When you get home
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?*
For those who have followed my blog via Facebook (though Facebook is making this increasingly difficult), this has been a very difficult Summer. A broken ankle, three surgeries on that ankle, the most recent on September 6th, and another projected 7 weeks of healing, and watching my favorite season, Summer, pass by my window as I sit in my chair, has been an experience of varying degrees of frustration. There are times I sit here stewing in my lack of independence.
Ruthie, my loving bride of almost 45 years, has been remarkable, helping me in a myriad amount of ways, from fetching medication, food, water, emptying urinals, helping me bathe and more. My gratitude for all the love I have experienced from Ruth, family, and friends has far out-weighed the pain and inconvenience this injury has caused me.
Ruthie likes to have a lot of background noise around her, hence, her favorite cable news station is on quite a bit (thankfully not the mindless dribble of Fox Cable News). Every now and again, there is a respite from Cable News with sojourns into HGTV and DYI TV. One can only see the same old episodes of Chip and JoJo Gaines (Fixer Upper), ugly Americans, spoiled by opulence, trying to assimilate to life in other world nations (House Hunters International), or Tarek and Christina play out the real life drama of their broken marriage while flipping houses in Orange County, California (Flip or Flop) so many times before going brain dead. Cable television is not quite the panacea of entertainment we would like to think it is. HBO keeps on playing the same films, most of them either depressing, sophomoric, or uninteresting.
Into this bog of intellectual, moral, and mindless decay (reminiscent of the dead marshes that Frodo, Samwise, and Gollum cross getting to Mordor, Lord of the Rings), is the corruption, the crimes, the racism, and the crimes against humanity being perpetrated upon our nation and the world by donald trump and his administration. And, anyone with any brains and common sense knows that it is only going to get worse as we get closer to national election of 2020. I feel like taking out my old Cold War comedy records with Tom Lehrer singing his song, “So long, mom. I’m off to drop the bomb, so don’t wait up for me.” (Note: At the height of the Cuban Missile Crises, Lehrer believed that we wouldn’t have time to have a popular “war” song, as we had had for all the “other wars” because all the earth would be obliterated in one gigantic nuclear flash. So, he decided to create one.)
As I was praying morning prayer today, I came upon this passage from the first reading for Mass.
“So, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one captivates you with an empty, seductive philosophy according to human tradition, according to the elemental powers of the world and not according to Christ. For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily, and you share in this fullness in him, who is the head of every principality and power.” (Col 2:6-8 NAB)
As my lengthy introduction to this verse demonstrates, all that is on television is for the most part an “empty, seductive philosophy according to human tradition.” It is amazing how easily we, as human beings, get sucked into the mindless world of television; the equally empty, mindless, empty, racist world of donald trump and those sucking up to him for political favors, and, theatrical works being past off as “art” on HBO. It all comes up empty, especially when we have to confront the horror of all the mass shootings in the United States, the human and physical devastation of global warming with Hurricane Dorian, and the plight of immigrants throughout the world fleeing the poverty and violence of their homelands.
Perhaps we flee into these worlds as a way of escaping the vapidness of our own existence. Perhaps, we seek to escape the horror of human violence around us. Is it any wonder that people seek escape in the myriad amount of drugs? While much of the blame for the current opiod epidemic is rightly placed on the criminal behavior on Big Pharma, it is very tempting to reach for a couple of 5 mg oxycodone tablets. However, the 60’s taught us that Timothy Leary’s axiom, “Turn on, tune in, drop out,” accomplishes only self-destruction. The drug and alcohol culture is just a vast seductive wasteland of empty human philosophy littered with human self-destruction.
You raise up your head
And you ask, “Is this where it is?”
And somebody points to you and says
“It’s his”
And you say, “What’s mine?”
And somebody else says, “Where what is?”
And you say, “Oh my God
Am I here all alone?”
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
It was really driven home last night as Ruthie and I were watching HGTV’s “A Very Brady Renovation”, as a stable of HGTV’s favorite fixer-up celebrities, along with the original cast of the Brady Bunch television show, were trying to transform the home the show used for “outside” shots, into that which was built on the sound stage of the show over 40 years ago. I felt my brain cells leaking out of my ears as one of the “Brady kids”, now in his 50’s, tried to match paint to the original house color portrayed on the television show. Really??? Over and over, everyone kept on repeating it was “very important” to get the color correct, as if the balance of world order depended on whether it was the exact shade of pukey cream or not. It was at this point when I turned to Ruthie and said, “Who really gives a shit?” The television show was crappy and mindless in the 70’s and nothing has much changed since it was, thankfully, removed from television.
You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts
When someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway they already expect you
To just give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations
You’ve been with the professors
And they’ve all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You’ve been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books
You’re very well read
It’s well known
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
While I am sure the world of Paul’s Colossian community was not as consumed by our current mindless activities, they had their own set of equally mindless, 1st century activities and empty human philosophies. Though they may not have had the news pundits and “authorities and experts” gathered in television cable news stations of our world today, the Greeks equally loved philosophical debates and discussions (Paul related how he got involved in these debates as he preached the Gospel). What is historically clear is humanity remains easily duped and captivated by the empty promises of “human tradition.” It speaks volumes when the late night comedians, like Steven Colbert, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers, point out the folly of much of what we see and hear on television. How sad that it is the comedians who speak truth, not those experts upon whom we rely for our news. As my son, Andy, once said to me, “If I really want to know what is truthfully going on, I will watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, “Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan”
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
I find that I must take Paul’s words to heart to receive, walk, root myself and build upon the faith I have received in Christ Jesus. For it is only in Christ in which I will experience the fullness I need in my life. If I don’t, I will be no better off than the clueless, self-important “Mr Jones” of Dylan’s “Ballad Of A Thin Man.”
Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word “NOW”
And you say, “For what reason?”
And he says, “How?”
And you say, “What does this mean?”
And he screams back, “You’re a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home”
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
*Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music
