In Which I Channel Rusty Reno

I’m over at Stand Firm today.

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I never thought I’d wake up one June and find that the blazing headlines of the moment would not be about Gay Pride month. That cyclical liturgy is now so much a part of the American experience that I have been shocked to see it unseated on the daily twitter scroll. But when I go over to that great stream of common humanity (that’s a joke) the covid updates are still fixed at the top, and all the stories underneath are about racism, the police, and other kinds of politics.

My side of town hasn’t forgotten though. On May 31st I noticed the furtive placement of certain new glossy rainbow flags in windows and nestled into the well manicured shrubbery on the lawns around me. The flag that has a sort of rainbow superimposed over the American Stars and Stripes seems a particular favorite. It is the virtuous marker of our time. It shows patriotism and tolerance in one bright image. It is the best way to be known as a good person.

I walk by all these mostly tasteful banners in the late evening, trying to take some exercise to burn off my covid bread addiction, wondering about the people inside the houses. They are all regular, ordinary people like me. Some of them even voted for Trump (not me, but our county went red, though I’m sure my own street did not). One beautiful house with a gorgeous ginger cat hanging around on the capacious porch, if you peak through the wide open front door, has a big wall hanging with the face of Che Guevara woven in a tapestry of yarn. Almost none of the people around me wake up and go to church on Sunday morning. They do garden splendidly though. All our peonies are blooming right now, and later the Black Eyed Susans and roses will be a blaze of glory. 

The question of virtue has always been at the center of the human heart. What makes a good person? What do good people think and do? How can you tell a good person from a bad one? I have always had the singular good fortune to know that I am a bad person. From very young I was spared the poisonous thought that I am special and smart and important. I think I was always pulled out of myself by circumstances and books and interesting people doing interesting things. When I had to think about myself at all it was usually to confront some lack, some trouble. I was never encouraged to let other people know my virtue, if I even had any. I never found it within myself to trot down the long aisle of a church for any kind of altar call. I always sat in the back and prayed for the sweet release of death. Letting you know this about myself, of course, confirms my own goodness. Look at me refusing to virtue signal. Thank goodness I am not like all my neighbors who do….read the rest here!