Synecdoche

I am a man, an American, a husband, an erstwhile father, a senior citizen, a voter, a Christian, an Episcopalian, a homeowner, a writer, a some-time curmudgeon, a dog and cat owner, an Element driver, a liberal, a member of the middle class, a retiree. And a whole lot of other things, including occasional jerk.

At home it doesn’t matter too much how I act as long as I don’t hurt myself or anyone else – that is, Ann, my wife of 40 years. In public, however, people frequently perceive me – and everyone else they meet – as representative of a whole class of people. This is technically synecdoche (sin-ECK-da-key), a term that means the use of a part of something to represent the whole thing, as in “wheels” for the whole car, or “pad” for an entire home.

Unfortunately, we too often apply synecdoche to people. For example, in the 1988 presidential race against Michael Dukakis, George H.W. Bush’s campaign used the image of Willie Horton. Horton was a prisoner on weekend furlough who raped and robbed a woman when Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts. Horton came to represent Dukakis’ “soft on crime” stance, and even more largely, the threat of African-Americans against the mainstream community. I understand that this example reveals me, too: What most other people think of as history, I still regard as current events.

In another example, a friend who is a devout Episcopalian refuses to have any Christian symbols on her car because, she says, if she makes a driving error, people will think she represents the way all Christians drive. And I can relate to this. I am often irritated by other drivers, and if they have a bumper sticker about the Rapture and the car being “unmanned,” I attribute their ineptness to other-worldliness.

Last night, when I was on the way to pick up a friend for dinner, I saw a woman on a cell phone had stopped about two car lengths from a viaduct, effectively creating a traffic jam for a mile behind her. I felt lucky to be traveling in the other direction on the two-lane road. A lesser person could well have attributed the gridlock to women drivers. I just muttered about stupid people in general and merrily drove on. I gave her enough grace to assume she was calling the cops or a tow truck – instead of chatting to a friend about her day and the rude people honking behind her.

One priest who abuses altar boys seems to create suspicion of all priests. One inept teacher often casts doubt on the competence of the whole profession.

Teenagers seem to bear the biggest brunt of emotional synecdoche. Many people fear teens, especially teenage boys. “They travel in groups and use jargon we don’t understand.” And things or people we don’t understand are the ones we fear most. A thousand teens volunteering in hospitals or tutoring grade school children somehow don’t make up for one teen who shoots another person – and gets all the publicity.


What to do, what to do? We can only be more conscious, more mindful, live thoughtfully in the moment. That means not judging all members of a group on the behavior of one. Teens, for example, are usually great people – and they grow up. It also means giving grace to people who fall. And all of us do that on a pretty regular basis.

Giving grace to others is not the end of it, however. We cannot behave as if we are always being watched and judged, even though we probably are. We must live with integrity. We must be our true selves, perhaps our best selves. We must give mercy to ourselves when we - frequently - fall short.

Christianity Today

Christianity Today

The new controversy in the Christian church seems to be whether or not the grave and actual bones of Jesus and His family have been found in a tomb in Israel.
No doubt this will spawn a huge industry, at least for a while, and a lot of people will make a lot of money. Perhaps they are envious (or imitative) of Dan Brown’s success with The DaVinci Code (which, by the way, we could get in paperback in Europe in English long before it became available in paper in the United States. Greed, gotta love it).
As a Christian, I don’t understand the folderol, although I am sure if anyone reads this blog (which is doubtful at this point) I will receive hate mail for my point of view. Too many people, it seems to me, take the Bible too literally. I think it is beautiful poetry, full of Truth, but not necessarily true.
Does it matter whether Jesus ascended bodily into heaven? Not to me. My faith tells me He is in heaven.
Do I believe heaven is a specific place that looks much like the cartoons in the New Yorker? No. Hell, it seems to me, is the absence of the Love and Grace of God. Conversely, heaven is the presence of the Love and Grace of God.
The Golden Rule is one of the Great Truths, and perhaps the most important teaching of the Bible – in both the Old and New Testaments – as well as in the major world religions. Jesus Himself reiterated this in Luke: “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” It seems to me that if we all followed this dictum, the world would be a far better place.
I see God’s Love and Grace in myriad ways in the world. And while it is trite to suggest that a sunset or sunrise or the mountains or the oceans or a rainbow show the love of God, they are still beautiful and powerful, and awful (in the literal sense) and show the presence of God to me. When I can’t be at the dunes to watch the waves on Lake Michigan, or happen to waken early enough to see a sunrise, or remember to look up from the evening news to check out the sunset, or find a mountain in the vast flat that surrounds Chicago on most sides, I still find God’s grace and Christ’s love.
Mostly I find Grace and Love in the people I meet every day: The lady at the dog park this morning who greeted me cheerfully and said she was glad to see me. The nurse who goes out of her way when I visit the doctor (Thanks, Hazel!) Neighbors down the street who always wave as they drive by. People who stop to tell me how beautiful my dogs are. I don’t know these people very well – or at all. My family provides even better examples. My wife forgives me most of my foibles and years ago stopped being embarrassed by the things I say and do. The man who gave us his two sons to grandparent after our son died when he was away college. Our grandsons David and Jonathan. Derek and Shannon, who chose me their dad. Sandra, our son’s former girlfriend, who still keeps in touch almost fifteen years later. All these people are living, walking Love and Grace, embodiments of Christ.
I have perhaps strayed far from my point about Jesus’ bones. But perhaps not. His bones (or the absence of them) don’t prove Jesus’ existence or divinity to me. My faith does. And my faith is reinforced every day by the Grace and Love people show to me.
We had a clergyperson once, who urged us constantly to find Christ in other people, a laudable goal. But I don’t think it’s hard to do. The hard part is finding and showing Christ in ourselves – a topic for another blog.
Thanks for reading.