It's a gift, not an entitlement

In the mid-1980s I was part of the now-long-disbanded post-college fellowship at my then-church, founded and led by the church’s parish assistant who had put together a “relationships seminar” (my, and likely others’, gateway into the church in the first place).

Through it I began to understand something I had not considered before: A relationship with a woman was and is a gift, neither earned nor something to which I was entitled. Indeed, one of the women in the group composed a song, “You’re a Gift,” that was sung at many weddings within that group.

I bring this up because of the recent incident in Toronto in which one man plowed car his into a group of women; it turned out that he was an “incel” — short for “involuntary celibate” — who was angry that he wasn’t getting the sex that he felt he deserved. We in Pittsburgh have seen such an incident, as nine years ago a man named George Sodini shot up a suburban LA Fitness before turning his gun on himself for similar reasons.

But before we denigrate such people for their murderous rampages, how often do we do the same thing — feel entitled to what we have or get angry when we can’t get it? Some reality must come into play because it gets into comparing yourself with everyone else. I often wonder about the social skills, or likely the lack thereof, that causes such men to feel left out. (I left the aforementioned group in part because of so many weddings.)

I got back into social dance in 2009 after some time away and, while I understood this instinctively, after a dance you’re supposed to thank your partner — because she could have said no. (I will often bow to her.) Indeed, I recently read an article on a West Coast Swing site where part of the atmosphere is to allow your partner “an amazing dance.”

In other words, it’s not always about you and what you want — you need to think about the other person as well.

But back to the relationship aspect. Recently one woman I met at a singles dance asked me why I wasn’t married; I told her, without rancor, “It just never worked out for me.” I’m hoping it will someday, but it isn’t something that I “deserve.”

It’s a gift, folks, not an entitlement.

'Understanding' Trump supporters

Leonard Pitts Jr., a columnist for the Miami Herald, recently wrote about a woman who insists that the rest of the country learn to “understand” those who supported President Donald Trump. He said that he wasn’t prepared to do that.

Nor am I — for one solid reason: Many of them don’t care to understand anyone else. And that’s the reason why we have such discord in this nation.

In one sense, this doesn’t surprise me. In the 1980s I was a regular subscriber to Christian media, which continually referred to anyone who disagreed with the conservative worldview as “anti-Christian.” Clearly, they (and likely their adherents) didn’t want to “understand”; they just simply saw enemies all around and in many cases sought to defeat them by raising money and outrage. That, folks, doesn’t take much to understand — if you're not with us you are the enemy.

See, we who aren’t conservatives really do understand them. Most of us do talk and listen to people not like ourselves; I understand that liberals comprise a quarter of the audience of the Fox News Channel. Part of being fair is listening to the other side.

That being said, we do believe, and can generally prove, that “conservatives” really do get things wrong, but if we say that we’re often accused of being “biased.” This is the reason they complain that the mainstream media delivers “fake news,” though responsible media never use fewer than two independent sources for any story they publish or broadcast. During his administration Trump has consistently refused to be called out on his consistent malfeasance and his supporters go right along with him for reasons I don’t understand except that he’s simply their guy. Moreover, many of these “Christian” leaders don’t confront him on his abuse of power and immoral behavior, cheapening their own message in the process.

And that’s why I’m not prepared to “understand” Christians who support Trump; there’s really nothing to understand except that they simply wanted people they didn’t agree with pushed out of power by any means necessary. All they do in the process is create resentment and anger — not toward Jesus Himself but political power brokers misusing His name.