Well, here we are again, poised on the edge of a new year. Time for most of us to take a look back, assess how our lives have gone for the past 365 days, and maybe think up some things we should do differently next year.
Yeah, well, not in this column. Rather, I'm going to comment on just how nice it is to be here in California rather than still in Utah.
My wife and I were back in her home state for a week. And yes, it was great to see our friends and family. She was thrilled to have a white Christmas, though green Solstices are fine with me. And of course, the mountains were beautiful.
But one day, out of morbid curiosity, I guess, I opened the local paper to the editorial page. This is the same editorial page where I had over 50 letters published during my two and a half years there. And lo and behold, there was a letter from a local citizen prattling about how America needed to return to its religious roots… "In God We Trust" and all that. A letter just like the dozens I responded to in my time there.
Frankly, it made my stomach turn, remembering what it was like to live in America's only state theocracy.
Now, my wife would love to return there. That's where her friends and family are, after all. And sometimes, to maybe prod me in that direction, she reminds me of how much I accomplished there. I founded a freethought group, educated the masses with the aforementioned letters to the editor, brought awareness of Constitutional breaches to the public by way of publicizing them on the front page of the paper. And yeah, I do feel a bit proud of my accomplishments there. But enough is enough. Over a year of heading the group and confronting the fundies head-on really wore me out. By the time we moved to California, I was looking forward to taking a more supportive role in the freethought movement, rather than a leading one.
And guess what I found here? Plenty of people like the letter writing fundies in Utah. But also plenty of people like me, who take them to task for their misunderstandings of our nation's history, or deliberate manglings of the First Amendment. In short, it was no longer critical for me to step into that role at all. What a relief!
Sure, when I saw that letter in the paper last week, my immediate gut reaction was to borrow my in-laws' computer and dash off a scathing (but educational) reply. But I fought it down. I closed the paper and didn't read another editorial during my visit.
It felt good.
Okay, I admit there's a twinge of guilt, as though I'd shirked my solemn duty. But there are plenty of folks in that area capable of crafting an appropriate response. In fact, one particularly talented member of my old group, a retired school teacher, now has a regular column in that paper. Of course, few of them are as harsh as the letters I used to write.
I've just moved on, I guess. Oh, I still write letters, when needed. But since I don't read the local paper (since I've determined that "my side" is adequately represented here), I've moved on to magazines. In the past couple months, for example, I've had letters printed in The Advocate and Meetings and Conventions Magazine. The latter letter even had a quote pulled from it to grace the top of the letters page.
But the simple truth is that my plate is so full that my activism has had to take a back seat. I'll still crank out these bi-weekly articles as long as possible. But I don't go out looking for trouble as I used to. Often enough, trouble sticks its face in mine, and then I'll react.
At least, that's how I view things for this coming year. But who knows how things will really go?
