Two Of My Heroes

I am quick to admit that my occasional political commentaries must be read realizing that they flow from my biases, long-held presuppositions that to this day remain intact. Do you know anyone who comments on current issues without such biases? Some of the more popular TV and/or print journalists should not be heard or read without a heavy sprinkling of salt, even if you agree with much of what they offer. I think of Sean Hannity of Fox News on one side and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC on the other.

For me the most dedicated and trusted journalist is Bill Moyers. I tend to believe whatever he has to say, even while I run it through my own take on reality. From his early days working with LBJ he rarely missed the target, misrepresented the facts or mishandled the underlying issues. I have never read a word he has written without affirming its clarity and his humanity.. In his published interviews Moyers has consistently asked the right questions and elicited from his subjects their best reasoning. I also find him and his wife Judith, to be solid, warm, caring friends, and have enjoyed their occasional visits to our community..

The other columnist whose judgment I continue to trust is David Brooks.. For many years I have affirmed almost without exception what he has had to say. I never miss reading his comments in the New York Times and listening to him on the PBS Friday News Hour. Even if he increasingly reinforces much of what I already hold to be true, the word that has rung true about him is “authentic.” I trusted him when he was more conservative than he is now. He came from a Republican political tradition articulated by William Buckley, Irv Chrystal, John Danforth and others. But that party has now been highjacked. To my surprise recent columns by Brooks are not about politics but instead focus on life’s principal’ decisions. He examines the disaster generated by a brace of generations that have reduced life to “let me be me,” and “do your own thing.” The resulting individualistic ethos he sees as an erosion of community.

Brooks’ exploration of community began with a classical Jewish childhood in Wayne, Pennsylvania, centered on the family’s Shabbat meal and then on the rituals found in his neighborhood synagogue. Somewhere along the way Brooks discovers Mother Teresa and her dedication to the wretched of the earth she saw in the ministry of Jesus. It was as Jesus offered himself to the world’s nobodies that he fulfilled God’s eternal unqualified love for the creation. Brooks eventually discovered the gospel of Matthew which includes the Beatitudes and their formula for living a God-centered life. In these teachings Jesus challenged him not to believe doctrines about him, but to follow him.

This is not a story about conversion from one religion to another. David Brooks remains a Jew, but he has found in Jesus a new invitation to the God-centered life. For him now religious systems are only fingers pointing to that which is ultimate, which is God. And that definition of faith defines most western religious thought.

The louder columnists and commentators scream, the more I am driven back to the quieter testimonies of Bill Moyers and David Brooks.

“The cries of crashing creeds are heard, on every side they sound.
But no age is degenerate in which such lives are found.”

Bill Moyers and David Brooks, thank you.