The Value of a Smile

This morning, a woman sat opposite me on the Metro. I didn’t know her nor she me, but I did notice one thing. She smiled, not just at me but at whomever she looked. She didn’t try to pretend she saw nobody in a car full of people. That was beautiful.

A couple months back, walking to the bus stop, I walked by a young man — my guess a Central American — working on the construction project across the road. Again, we didn’t know each other but his one reaction was to smile. It was the first human reaction I had that morning from anybody, and it was beautiful.

Last week, a woman was pushing a carriage through the Metro. A young lady passed her by. What was telling was that the young lady looked down at the baby and, instinctively, smiled. Once upon a time, that seemed a natural reaction to babies. The fact that action now seems a bit extraordinary — but something nevertheless natural between one woman and another — perhaps says something about our civilization.

Finally, I recently read about a young man in San Francisco who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. He sent a note to his psychologist, received posthumously, which said he would not go through with his act if, on his way walking out to the bridge, he saw at least one person smile at him.

Is it really so hard?

Overheard Conversation I

In the George C. Scott movie version of “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come why he overhead erstwhile colleagues talking about somebody’s funeral. “Why was I privy to that conversation?” It could be a moment of grace (kairos). In that spirit:

Passing Union Station the morning after the Trump-Harris debate, I overheard three workers talking about what the presidential candidates said about abortion. One said he is “pro-life,” while the other said Harris supported being able to “get rid of the thing.” The fact that we have allowed the “choice” rhetoric to gain a footing leads to people now talking about “the thing.”

Overheard Conversation II

Further up the street, on the way to Capitol Hill, two young Congressional staffers excitedly discussed one’s new apartment, which apparently just yesterday added the “amenity” of a “dog park.” (She was also excited about a cubbyhole where she could keep doggie vitamins). I recently wrote about an Institute of Family Studies report (here) on “childless cities,” i.e., how many of America’s cities will likely lose up to 50% of their <5 population in the next decade or so. The National Marriage Project has already reported how ever larger portions of American adults’ lives include no interactions with a child. Our myopic way of thinking doesn’t see downstream consequences of trends, but ask yourself: Would a 20-something woman three decades ago have been more interested in a “dog park” or a park for kids? And are apartment complexes, neighborhoods, and cities building more of the former than the latter for their “fur babies”? Once upon a time, it was the curmudgeonly old guy (“get off my lawn!”) that complained about his town building schools he no longer cares about. Now, it’s young “childless cat ladies” who are also more concerned about pet parks and the availability of pooper scoopers. There’s already a movement that argues if children are “choices” then the individual — not the community, the society, the “village”– should bear those extra costs. Isn’t that “weird”?

Intergenerational Solidarity

While adults are growing up without kids’ presence, kids are growing up without adult culture. First Things editor Mark Bauerlein spoke last night at Belmont House DC in Washington. His talk included many insights (some of which you can find in-depth in his book, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults), but one worth more reflection was his comment that the screen culture locks its users in a “youth culture” that is anti-intellectual and, ultimately, closed to the Transcendent. If childless adults are locked in their little worlds, so too are children — locked in a culture of their peers bereft of adult influence to shape and moderate them. Perhaps the one thing we need to learn for a healthy culture and society is the necessity of intergenerational solidarity from real intergenerational contact.

IUDs Can Hurt

The New York Times carries an OB-GYN’s guest essay September 12, saying intrauterine device (IUD) insertion is “An Invasive, Painful Procedure.  Why Don’t We Treat It Like One?” No doubt. But tomorrow the Times will likely carry a guest essay that abortion isn’t complicated, and that blobs of tissue can’t “feel” anything. Then one wonders why people doubt media-provided “science.”

“The Doctor Will Kill You Now”

Our society has tended to pivot from deep thinking to slogans, so I wanted to share this brief but pithy observation. West Virginians vote this November on a state constitutional amendment that would ban euthanasia and other forms of “physician-assisted suicide” in the Mountain State. You can make all the deep arguments you want, but the above phrase captures the pro-life view in six words. Do you want the nurse coming into the waiting room to say, “The doctor will kill you now”?

Signs of the Times

Walking to work recently, I saw the first squirrel in a tree harvesting acorns for winter. I could imagine him as the kind of guy who goes to his accountant the moment he has all his W2s in hand, ready to file his taxes. Me, I’ve reformed, too: I now make it a point to show up by April 13.

Like the Harvest Moon that shows up in the next two weeks, nature shows signs of the times. Squirrels, who do not plan or carry schedules, are already starting to ramp up for the winter. (For more on them, see here.) Less than a month ago, people were roasting on beaches.

I’ve made it a point to write an essay on the first day of each quarter this year, reminding people about their New Year’s resolutions. Lapsus est annus went the old hymn: “a year is dead.” In roughly a quarter of the year, it will be. Despite God’s rationing of man’s time, nevertheless most of us expend it like a spendthrift. But God is patient and merciful; He hires at dawn and He hires at 5 pm, welcoming all the laborers to His harvest.

Maybe we can learn a lesson from the squirrels?