And I have to say, I’m proud of my restraint. The priest was talking about the Greatest Generation, and said they didn’t believe in making excuses for themselves or thinking of themselves as victims, and suggested that we live like that, too.
I didn’t stand up and ask, “So you feel the proper response to social and economic injustice inherent in the system is to blame ourselves?”
But I didn’t. Other than that, perfectly nice funeral!
“There’ll be pie in the sky in the great by and by.” What the pastor overlooks is that this generation rejected that tripe in electing FDR four times over. Clerics are given to revisionist histories starting with the foundational.
Admirable self control, Suzi. Greatest generation? The founders of American exceptionalism and ultimately the destroyers of America.
What a strange clergyman.
My mentor was a good Episcopalian priest who instilled in me the moral values that later motivated me to create the civilian conservation corps for those who had been victimized by wall street.
signed, FDR
How can anyone stand up to such idiots? It would be pointless to try.
Just because they believed strongly in a social safety net doesn’t mean they didn’t also believe in the doctrine ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ They expected to work hard and understood that life isn’t fair, so you just suck it up and move ahead. And for those getting kicked to the gutter more than is the norm, provide for them because we’re all in this together. That’s the generation the pastor was talking about.
How we baby boomers inherited that and turned it into Greed Inc, USA I’ll never know. But your pastor was spot on.