From the May section of www.philosophy-religion.org/christmas_letters/letter2007.htm.

A LAMENT AT AGE 70

Richard T. Nolan and Robert C. Pingpank 

For a few moments, however, please bear with this one extended lament – topics which deserves clarification and justification beyond our purposes here. As older people often do, we regret many aspects of current global and local life.

1. We regret that a significant degree of conflict seems to be the anticipated norm in most human relations, circumstances so absolutely different from our life together and the homes in which we were raised. Where we disagree, we either compromise or agree to differ.
2. We are saddened by the evolution of spoken and written English. ("Me and him went on a date." "I aksed a question.") Have norms of sentence structure, grammar, and spelling been set aside as a result of indifference and political correctness? Is slang now equivalent to standard English? Are errors acceptable as “dialects”?
3. We are repelled by our culture of meanness - so clearly noticeable in the ongoing decline of civility. In that vein, we regret the preoccupying cultural fascination with (and addiction to) gruesome media and violent behavior.
         All the more important to develop a haven of mutual affection for oneself and one’s family, while being responsive prudently and charitably to the way things are outside one’s sanctuary!
4. We deplore the refusal of so many to accept realistic responsibility for their overall circumstances. In this regard, religious fatalism includes certain forms of “prayer” that leave practically everything in God’s hands and thereby reduces believers to indecisive and passive victims. “Providence” is not a cosmic puppeteer.
5. We are more than critical of those who resent all achievement, as if every straightforward accomplishment were somehow inherently and grievously tainted.
6. We are alarmed by the extent to which the environment is in need of rehabilitation and protection.
7. We cringe at the global lack of effective family planning; emotionally and/or financially unprepared individuals continue mindless breeding – a form of unintentional child abuse.
8. We reject the many presumptions of entitlement pervading American ways of life, an unrecognized factor among wealthy, pedigreed people as well as many others.
9. We deplore the cultural epidemic of inefficient, shoddy workmanship and service.
10. We abhor the toxicity and corruption of so much within political, business, and ecclesiastical worlds.
11. We reject entertaining gadgetry and performances that pervade both “enrichment” curricula and human-focused worship.
12. We are terribly disappointed in Episcopal Church worship with its increasing ceremonial affectations (all “justified” theologically and historically) that drag out liturgies. (Many brief essays about these issues are available within www.philosophy-religion.org.)

Furthermore, we are concerned with the degree to which many clergy and laity are trumpeting claims of private divine revelations or definitive “calls” and messages from God (or Saints) as well as their growing preoccupation with New Age-like superficialities. This strikes us as radically individualistic, unverifiable by others, self-serving, and delusional – with no positive benefit to Christian communities of faith. We suspect that the “sanctification of their own desires” (an apt turn of phrase offered by author-priest Barbara Brown Taylor) is at work in most of this holyspeak. A British priest, scholar, and writer recently commented in London’s Church Times on many current “spiritual” experiences as “an empty form of free-floating flatulence.” Indeed!
Additionally, “magic thinking” seems to have entered the realm of prayer, wherein many Christians appear to be using prayer as naïve incantations and as a vent for fervent wishful thinking. “Pray without ceasing …” (1 Thessalonians 5:17 pertaining to the priority of prayer) has been morphed into random, self-indulgent chatter.
As well, the marketing of “peasant religion” seems to be on the rise. Given the idiocies promoted by too many religious groups, how will caring, thoughtful, and informed people ever discover and connect effectively with hard-to-find, emotionally stable, credible, religious leaders?
In actuality many religious functionaries are walking tragedies - sometimes emotionally masochistic, often posing as Christian “servants,” yet are utterly devoid of healthy human relationships; most utilize sanctimonious club language – all so very unlike Jesus.
Finally, the imbalanced emphasis on “good works” is giving subordinate places to what the Church can provide uniquely: worship, religious education, and pastoral care. Humanitarian outreach can be carried on, usually more competently, by all sorts of secular agencies. Our unique ministries have suffered immeasurably in quality, and Christianity is misunderstood primarily as social ethics – one important element of pastoral care.
13. We enthusiastically denounce the many self-anointed, ever grinning/scowling, moral   guardians who seem dedicated to sucking the joy out of responsible, enjoyable dimensions of contemporary living. (“If it’s truly pleasurable, it must be sinful.” “Self-denial is the be all and end all of the Christian life.”) Likewise, we loathe the radical, un-American, religious-political right that thrives on distortions, outright lies, contrived fears, and their own mounting hypocrisy.
14. We are embarrassed for those men and women – and children – who tastelessly bare their souls on television with Dr. Phil, Oprah, Springer et al., and also for individuals who desperately battle in banal “reality” television programs. Have they no sense of privacy or personal dignity?
15. We pity those who seek their identity, worth, and fulfillment by means of public record setting with reckless, often vulgar, behaviors. Why would anyone want to be known as a record holder (soon to be outdone) for stuffing themselves with hot dogs? How can anyone be proud of climbing a perilous mountain “because it’s there” – especially when their family is dependent upon them emotionally and/or financially? (These are inane American values!) Such people are running on empty.
16. We are concerned that trendy extremes of “globalization” will obliterate people’s sense of a genuine, local “neighborhood” and its well-deserved attention. Although we are not isolationists, we do think that an exaggerated sense of responsibility prevails among many who wish to do good at a distance while overlooking service to local neighbors – and sometimes to their own families. Appeals to quantum physics and John Donne’s tolling bell to justify a simplistic oneness of all humanity are naive and misleading.

A frequent corollary: appropriate personal boundaries elude many such folks in several areas of their lives. In an odd version of “Franciscanism” many well-meaning humanitarians neglect appropriately balanced self-love; they too often try to love everyone on the planet equally while loving almost no one (including themselves) personally, individually, and nearby.
Unlimited “servanthood” – a word thrown around with thin meanings – needs another look, in case the deserving person(s) at hand are disregarded.
17. We are skeptical about the degree to which federal space programs siphon funds from urgent earthly uses, such as environmental rehabilitation and further enabling assistance to deserving poor citizens.
18. We dislike and scoff at the meaninglessness of particular words used to suggest a significant bond or homogeneity among some individuals, especially “friend” (e.g., someone seen infrequently at work or that has been met on one occasion), “family” (e.g., the Microsoft, Harvard, Anglican, NBC-TV-viewers, and human “family”), “neighbor” (e.g., everyone in a region or even all humanity), “community” (e.g., the gay, white, or human “community”). Faux togetherness, pseudo-intimacy, and a wide-ranging vagueness have blurred any sense of legitimate linguistic boundaries.

An overlooked reality by many an organization (including the Church) is that loyal participants vary considerably in their relationship to the association. For example, even some clergy experience the parish church as one of a number of significant communities in their lives – but not as their “family.” Quite often, clergy and lay leaders assume that all ordained people (and lay members) are, or want to be, a “family.” Not so! Similarly, the workplace is “family” for some and not so for others.
19. We are appalled at the all-pervading cultural influence of celebrity and transient fashion/cosmetics. Despite their respective excesses, absurdities, and idolatrous implications, they flourish commercially and are even highlighted during “news” telecasts!
20. We are alarmed by self-inflicted health problems in the United States and elsewhere. Many occurrences of sexually transmitted diseases (some fatal), degrees of obesity, frenzied paces of living (often exhibited by self-anointed, exhausted crusaders), destructive interpersonal relationships, substance abuse, etc. continue to wreak havoc among individuals and their families. At the very least, this self-neglect is escalating medical insurance rates for us all.
21. We are always surprised with each step downwards with regard to public manners. Admittedly changeable, good manners express significant regard for others and lessen pressures of collective living; courteous behavior recognizes the right of others to share common spaces.

Continuous shrieking by children in restaurants or elsewhere (as permitted by paralyzed adults on hand), needlessly loud music and voices, instant familiarity (using first names indiscriminately), frequent interruptions during conversations, and coarse language are, for us, unwelcome changes. Dreadful public manners represent a self-centered, low regard for others.
22. We are horrified by the extent to which destructive, ruthless competition has infected so many areas of life. Unlike instances of constructive competitiveness in business, informal sports, etc., winning at all costs has become an absolute American virtue. Almost all human activities have become occasions of competition rather than cooperation.
23. Because of Rich’s out of the blue, emergency hospitalizations, our reluctance to venture beyond the Broward – Palm Beach Counties region is reinforced. As registered “domestic partners” in Palm Beach County, we are legally protected for access to each other in hospitals within our County, as well as in Broward. In all other parts of Florida and the nation, we are legally strangers to each other; therefore, in medical emergencies we could be denied mutual access. Such enforced separations are more routine than one might realize. Nothing could be more cruel! Consider the Florida regions and states we would have to go through, if we were to drive as far as New England! Genuinely supported human “diversity” is quite limited.
24. We are saddened by the continuing dumbing down of the United States population, which as a whole seems to cater to prevailing bottom-of-the-barrel benchmarks. Our civilization has set aside the virtues of initiative, perseverance, conscientiousness, excellence, personal initiative and responsibility, and genuine achievement - along with fundamental polish and grace. (Is one a snob or politically incorrect for prizing reasonable degrees of refinement attainable by all?)

Regardless of these many deficiencies, and fortified by the indispensable sentiments of the “Serenity Prayer,” we are enormously grateful to be living so well at this time in history. (We have known of too many well-intentioned individuals who elect to bounce inconsequentially from one cause to another; they eventually suffer from “Samaritan burnout” and never experience that “peace which the world cannot give.”) If it is true that a “successful” individual is one who has touched some others’ lives with love, and has graciously accepted others’ loving touch, then we have been sufficiently successful.