I can’t feel sorry for Joe Biden in the way my childhood faith taught me. Having been raised Catholic, though I am now lapsed, I know I should, but pity is an affirmative act. Pity requires some corresponding action, like prayer. Faith seems to require that one must actively feel pity, do something about it, and I just… can’t. It would feel false. Because whether or not one thinks, intellectually, that the recipient of your prayer is deserving, surely impacts the act of prayer, and that’s where I seem to find myself: at a crossroads. The pity crossroads. The intersection of cool intellect and sincere, heartfelt emotion.
The best I can manage is to hope he doesn’t suffer. That comes from a very real place within my heart and my head. It’s a hard and fast rule to me for reasons which are both intellectually sound and heartfelt that one should never wish ill on another; it’s the whole pointing the finger rule, dontcha know. When you point a finger, three are curled back in your direction and sensible people wish to avoid that kind of karma, right? That’s the rational part. That’s reasonable. “I don’t want to suffer the same or a worse fate, so I shan’t wish it on anyone else.” Duh.
Normal people don’t enjoy the suffering of others. It’s abnormal; not in harmony with the human condition nor with the noble soul of man. Hoping Joe Biden doesn’t suffer also doesn’t require anything on my part. Hoping someone — anyone — doesn’t suffer is such a natural part of my own, personal human existence that it just flows out of me, with no affirmative act, well, affirming it, necessary. I needn’t pray nor make any public or private declaration (though I suppose I am doing it here).
What I am really doing is hoping to offer a permission structure for all of us. An argument that you needn’t wrestle with your very understandable mixed feelings regarding this news of Joe Biden’s (likely terminal) cancer. It’s perfectly natural to want your tormentor to go away, and for literally millions of us, that’s what Joe Biden represents. A menace. One who has done us real, tangible harm. So go ahead. Let your head wrestle with your heart, indeed your very soul, over what to feel and what to do, but don’t spend too long.
Take this as you will from this lapsed Catholic, but I don’t think we need to pray for him. You needn’t take affirmative action, especially if it feels false! God knows your heart, knows when you are sincere, so why fake it? Merely (passively) hoping he doesn’t suffer is quite enough, it seems to me, and really, it’s all I can manage. Maybe knowing that about me helps you. After all, like I stated before, we don’t want anyone suffering, and that includes the MAGA among us who may be struggling with how to feel upon hearing this news, so if peeking into what some will surely call my black heart helps you feel less conflicted about the news, then I’ve achieved my goal here.
Simple decency is all that’s required. And surely we can all manage that, right?
Image: YouTube video screen grab.