Recently a friend sent me an article by a pastor that got me thinking about my life. By John Pavlovitz* entitled \u201cMissing The America That Never Was,\u201d it described the chasm between our beliefs and the reality of America. It resonated with me as I looked back on my experience in Dubuque, Iowa. Garrison Keillor would would have felt at home there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Growing up in Dubuque was comfortable and easy for me as well as for most of my friends and acquaintances. It was idyllic and held out the promise of success and happiness. I remember riding my bike down to Ludwig\u2019s grocery store for a pop (soda) and later exploring Grandview Park and the palatial grounds of the Mt. Carmel Mother House, a Catholic convent. I remember riding in my father\u2019s Packard to Bryant, one of the several public elementary schools, and walking home on freshly plowed snow in the winter. I was never a very good student, but always got by with not much effort. It was fun. That was my view of things, life was fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much later, I found out that Dubuque was hardly representative of the \u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d that I mangled singing in Miss Phillip\u2019s 5th grade class. Largely middle class with virtually no minorities, we all looked the same, shared similar ethnicities and generally got along with one another, at least during my generation. My family attended St. Raphael\u2019s Cathedral, a large imposing church symbolic of the preeminence of the Catholic faith in the community. There were two Catholic colleges, a large parochial school system, Catholic hospitals, seminaries and a Trappist monastery. As impressive as the church\u2019s real estate was, however, it was balanced by the presence of a Presbyterian college and seminary, a Lutheran seminary and a sizable protestant population represented by several prominent families. Overall, it was a harmonious and ecumenical experience for most citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later in life, after two years in the navy, living in Virginia and Arkansas and settling in Georgia, like Toto in the \u201cWizard of Oz,\u201d I knew I was no longer in Dubuque. I had met people of all colors, religious faiths, walks of life and political beliefs, including many who didn\u2019t speak English. I had heard nuanced bigotry about Catholics and Jews and witnessed racism, especially toward black Americans. I had also traveled the land to see poverty and worked as a social worker in the ghettos of Norfolk, Virginia, where I came face-to-face with the underside of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While I have never lost my confidence in America nor my belief that people are the same everywhere, I have seen our shortcomings and gained an appreciation for our problems. Most importantly, perhaps, I have learned that Dubuque, Iowa, was for me, at least, living in a bubble far from the reality of many less fortunate Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pastor Pavlovitz\u2019s article will be seen by some as another leftist bashing of America, but that would miss the point. Au contraire, he is loving America by simply pointing out our failures as a way to make life better for all of us. My personal experience reaffirms my faith that we will step up and do the right thing to square reality with the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is with these sentiments that I dedicate this to the memory of Ahmaud Arbery, the young black man who was run down while jogging and shot like a dog by two white men in Brunswick, Georgia, on February 23, 2020, not far from where I\u2019m writing these words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n