The Puzzlement of People

Earlier this month we visited Big Bend National Park in west Texas. The climax of one particular and otherwise easy hike involved a precarious climb up a series of boulders. Just as we were scratching our heads and evaluating the least treacherous option, a group of three hikers were descending along the same route. Seeing our apprehension, the three spread out, like a bucket brigade, and pulled us forward from one to the next and the next until we reached the safety of the plateau at trail's end. They were, we told them, visiting angels.

I thought of those angels yesterday in the context of two airports, a regional jet, and my 96 year old father for whom mobility isn't as simple as it once was. He was whisked through security and down the length of the terminal by cheerful, expediting employees who would not countenance interference. Inside the plane, and separated by several rows, one after another fellow traveler recognized his need and took him under their wing, helping however they could.

"People are good," he observed at the end of the day.

The kindness of strangers. The visitation of angels.

Juxtaposing these kindnesses, of course, is the story of a crazed ideologue who broke into the home of the Speaker of the United States House of Representative and, failing to locate the Speaker, attacked and seriously injured her husband with a hammer.

It's hard to hold these two expressions of the human race in tandem. One seems so filled with grace and generosity, the other with such malice and unmitigated, untethered aggression. Like the animalistic, faux patriotism that boiled into violence on January 6, 2021, it is the self-justifying "annihilate opposition at any cost", "end justifies the means" moral disintegration that is the stuff of anarchy. Under the guise of the "defense of freedom," it represents humanity's worst expression. Let me state the obvious: civilized, morally mature people do not act this way. They do not attack each other with hammers when they disagree.  No matter the substance of our disagreement, decent people simply do not act this way.

But here we are, arguing about who is to blame. We live in strange times when, to bastardize Charles Dickens, the best of human nature and the worst of human nature cohabit a razor's edge. But heretofore our collective "better nature" has harnessed and redirected our stormier, more destructive selves. Presently we seem to be baiting and sheltering with contrived justification our vilest impulses.

We lend a selfless hand. When that hand isn't wielding a hammer.

Just when we convince ourselves of our advanced sophistication, we prove how little we have evolved. The jungle is not far behind us.

Or the zoo.

3500 years after Moses, 2000 years after Jesus, 1500 years after Mohammed we are still attacking each other with hammers.

I'd say the religious among us need to step up our game. If we haven't forgotten everything we once were taught, we clearly yet have a long way to go in figuring out what to do with it.

Gracious generosity and violent coercion arm wrestling for the soul of a people.

It remains to be seen who will prevail.

We people are a puzzle.