because Grandma and I disagreed on
some important points, and it was easy to focus on our differences. Grandma was
hard-core Southern Baptist, so our opinions on race, the nature of the Creator
and some other things conflicted. We never fought, but we have sat at the table
with our jaws set as if we were biting nails.
But, the way I figure it, anyone
born in 1911, who started a family during The Depression and raised seven
children -- the last two mostly by herself -- can be excused for not believing
as I do. She clearly never had the time or resources to develop a worldview
based on the implications of the size and complexity of the Universe, of the
behavior of subatomic particles, of organic evolution, and the genetic heritage
and history of humans.
In fact, when I think about it,
Grandma accomplished precisely what I aspire to do.
That is, she absorbed what
information and insight she could during the times during which she lived, in
the community in which she found herself, and then she lived according to the
principles she recognized. Well, I try to do the same thing. It's just that I
have access to different information and I define my community differently.
Grandma and I have always agreed that if you say you believe in something, you
are obliged to live accordingly.
Under difficult conditions, Grandma
fought her way into a hard-headed religiosity swinging the dual clubs of Bible
verses and Billy-Graham pronouncements pretty much as I have bashed my way
toward a homebrew spirituality wielding the cudgels of science and natural
paradigms.
In a way, then -- different as we
have been -- Grandma and I are essentially the same stuff, the same melodies
the Creator has played in different keys.
It's more than even that. My
experience with Grandma has made it easier for me to see and believe the thing
that Nature is always saying through Her passion for diversity: That even
opposites can enrich one another, and be worth caring about.
*****
GRAPE ETHICS
On National Public
Radio they are presenting a series of segments on the subject of ethics. On
Tuesday they explored the question of how unethical it would be -- if at all --
to steal a single grape in a supermarket. Some people insisted that it wasn't
unethical at all while most took ambiguous positions saying that it depended on
the circumstances. Only the professional ethicist asserted that taking even one
grape was unethical. He further explained that in classical