FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND,
AN AQUARIAN EXAMINATION
On this fourth of July weekend,
after the Sunday’s Masses,
babies’ sacramentally bathed
and oiled, I rest, my tired feet
raised on my recliner, hip and
knee sore from the morning’s
standing, the television on,
though not to any patriotic
programming, no cinematic
bravura glorifying war, nor
the viewing of our nation’s
patriotic pastime, but to
the movie, “Woodstock.”
Three days of music and peace,
a promise given, a promise kept
long ago in August of Nineteen
Hundred and Sixty-nine. The
Upper Midwest so far away
from the sea of people and mud
on Yazgur’s dairy farm, you and I
hardly knew what had taken place.
I watch with nostalgic sadness
the hopes and dreams of my
younger self portrayed in the
faces of those young people
frolicking, skinny-dipping,
dancing to the music, smoking
weed, dropping acid, and making
love in the farmland’s muck.
One mass love-in, the physical
embodiment of the Beatles’
“All You Need Is Love” designed
to show an America, torn and
ripped asunder, its soul weary
from the death and the horrific
violence of Vietnam, that to
“make love, not war”
was the most powerful force
created in the world.
As the musicians’ sets play on
the television, I look into the faces
of those young idealists, their
nearly naked or naked bodies
swaying like reeds in the wind
to the music, faces freed from
care, a calm assurance that this
new way of living will change
the course of human history.
Some will turn on, tune in, and
drop out of the ugliness of human
nature through pharmaceutical
madness, attempting to fly
chemically higher than Icarus,
only to crash, shattering upon landing.
Others will seek the same through
communal living, transcendentally
projecting themselves into the
astral Age of Aquarius, where
planets align and human hearts
hope to recover primeval innocence
only to discover that what they seek
is not something that can be attained,
though small groups will faithfully
stay true to their course and causes.
Some will emerge from their communes
only to take up the lifestyle against
which they had once rebelled, as
enslaved to it as had been their
parents.
While others, utterly opposed to all
that
Woodstock upheld will pour themselves
into the false myths of the free market,
politicizing, taking out “Contracts On
America”, and proselytizing profit
margins from War’s destruction,
amassing great wealth from destroying
the ecosystems of the Earth.
You and I, bathe in our pop culture,
our lives and values formed out of
that mud during those three days
in Outstate New York. We believe
that Love is the all powerful force
in and throughout the Universe.
It is this Love that moves you
to nursing, caring for the confused
vulnerable in nursing homes.
It is this Love that leads me,
as duped as the prophet Jeremiah,
to a life of Church ministry, at the
whim of the Holy Spirit’s breath,
blown to where God sees most need.
I, sadly, nostalgically watch this
documentary of our generation,
lamenting the lost ideals of this
music festival, the lost dreams of
changing this world from the violence
and the self-centeredness that
poisons the hearts of human beings.
Suddenly, entertaining a moment of
pure whimsy, have you and I, the least
likely of the flower child movement,
fulfilled the hopes and dreams of
those three days of peace and music?
Our lifestyle, wrapped in family, nurses
uniforms, deacon alb and stole, hardly
resemble the free love, flower power
of our generational brothers and
sisters.
Yet, have not our lives lived out the
hopes and the ideals of those
muddy masses gathered together
on that farm for three days, forty-six
years ago, in which the doctrine of
Love conquers and rules all? Perhaps
presumptuous, outrageously so to think
that you and I are Aquarian Catholics
perched upon the neck of that guitar,
just like the dove in the poster.
Outrageously presumptuous, indeed,
delightfully so … perhaps, even true.
© 2015.
The Book Of Ruth, Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment