The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

Credit: glennharper http://www.flickr.com/photos/glennharper/ CC BY-SA 2.0

Almost a year ago, a man waded into San Francisco Bay at a neck-high depth. Then, slowly, he inched farther out into the water. Apparently, the man was suicidal. He remained in the water for roughly 60 minutes, and a crowd of people watched. A crowd of first responders watched. After an hour, someone pulled the man's lifeless body from the water.

I'm not sure why I saved this story. Maybe because it's so bizarre. 

According the fire chief, the first responders wanted to save the man but due to budget cuts they were without the appropriate training and equipment to do so. In the news story, the fire chief is quoted as saying, "They're standing there wanting to do something, but they are handcuffed by policy at that point."

After public outrage over the incident, the city was able to find funds to train and certify 16 firefighters for this type of scenario.

It was a dangerous situation, I believe, and I don't fault anyone present for what happened. It was an instant in which a number of unfortunate things converged: the water was too shallow for the Coast Guard boat, the Coast Guard helicopter needed to refuel, the firefighters were ill-equipped and ill-trained, the pitiful decisions of policymakers.

I think maybe I saved this story because it clearly demonstrates how money and life are intertwined. In legislatives bodies, whether the UN, US congress, or local city councils, money is separated from the lives it impacts. Men and women in these positions of power can cut funding for AIDS victims, SNAP recipients, Medicare, or firefighters and never have to face the impact of those decisions. The policymakers don't have to look into the eyes of the suffering and say, "It's not my responsibility." They say it from within the climate-controlled halls of legislation. They say it to cameras, not faces.

Not here. Not this time. The impact of local fiscal policy is obvious. It's not any different for the higher levels of government, it's just easier to ignore. It's easier to be isolated from the effects of policy. After all, how many of us really know if someone lives or dies in Africa or Haiti?

It's just Monopoly money and they're all Monopoly pieces. We're all Monopoly pieces.

This, incidentally, illustrates what I wrote yesterday: modes of church giving that are currently practiced originated in the empire, not the kingdom. Think about it.