Ring a Bell; Be awake

By Bobby Neal Winters

I’ve been reading a book entitled “To Govern the Globe,” by Alfred W. McCoy, who is a Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

It is both interesting to me as history and disturbing to me as history.

He begins with the history of how the Portuguese got into the slave trade. While this is a gross simplification--if you want more details read the book--the Portuguese handed it off to the Spanish, the Spanish handed it off to the Dutch, and the Dutch handed it off to the English.

At each hand-off, it seems like each of these countries added its own evil little twist.  The English basically became drug pushers for a while by selling opium to the Chinese.

And to make it all the more disturbing, they all came up with religious reasons that these crimes they were committing against their fellow children of God were actually good things: They were doing the people they were making into slaves and working to death a favor.

Yep.

I just have to sit back and think about it.  This is history.  This happened. 

I’ve been sitting at the keyboard for a few minutes trying to figure out where to go next with this.  So much of what is going through my head is trying to find some justification for all this. “They would’ve done it to us if positions had been reversed.” “That’s just the way things go when civilizations come into contact.” And so on.

That may even be true.

But what do I know? What is true? Or, as Pilate put it, “What is Truth?”

The truth is people are all the same.  We don’t improve as a species in time.  The changes that come do so because we are capable of learning.  This is hard because it is hard for one generation to change its idea of what is true.  This usually has to wait for the next generation.  And you have to pray that the next generation doesn’t lose some of the truths picked up along the way or learn some new “falses.” 

We have learned that slavery is wrong.  It’s still here.  We call it human trafficking now.  (Any day I expect someone to say that we need to make human trafficking legal so we can regulate it and tax it: “We can use the money for the schools! It’s for the Children!”)  

The truth is we need to be alert.  Those of us who are religious need to be mindful of the fact that there are those who will continually try to use our religion to manipulate us.  This is true regardless of whether you are Protestant or Catholic; whether you are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or Jew. 

The truth is that, in spite of being as alert as we can be, those who would manipulate us will succeed at least some of the time.  That is because we are trying to live our lives among our fellow humans, and “They” are trying to manipulate their fellow humans for profit and power.

The truth is that I can’t comfort myself by saying I wouldn’t’ve been part of all the wrong that was done.  This is something that is taught to me by my religion. One year during Holy Week we had a Tenebrae Service.  The pastor asked us whether we could have abandoned Jesus like the disciples. Would we have denied him like Peter? Would we have betrayed him like Judas?

I can’t say that I would’ve done better than either one.

Neither can I say I wouldn’t’ve participated it the slave trade. Neither can I say I wouldn’t’ve sold opium to the Chinese. Neither can I say I wouldn’t’ve dropped the atomic bomb on Japan or taken part in the Holocaust. 

I can look at myself now and ask if there is anything I ought to stop doing and if there is anything more I ought to do.

I was ringing bells for the Salvation Army yesterday. I was there for an hour.  Different women, my age or older, would get their carts to a particular spot and poke around in their purses for a few minutes and bring out some change or some cash.  They would put the money in the kettle and say--they all said it--sorry this is so little.

Having seen dozens go by not putting anything in, I thought if everyone did as much as your little, a lot of hungry people would be fed, a lot of naked people clothed.

So, given the knowledge of all of the sins of my forebears, what do I do? 

Love my neighbor, love my enemy. Put a quarter in the kettle.  

Ring a bell. 

Be awake.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.