Narcissism

#495


The great comedian WC Fields said, “Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.” On the Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy show, after Charlie McCarthy had insulted WC Fields about his large nose, Fields told Charlie that he was just “woodpecker food”.

There was a time, before comedy resorted to four letter words that people could laugh at one another...Poles, WOPs, degos, etc. As the great writer Sinclair Lewis said, “you can say most anything if you smile when you say it”. In this epidemic of political correctness most people are too narcissistic, too self indulged, have too great an opinion of self to enjoy one another. Selfishness is the highest form of narcissism. We have produced several generations of spoiled brats...too lazy to walk to school, (school parking lots full of expensive cars driven by students) too proud to ride a school bus, willing to run the risk of jail time to cut expensive labels out of clothing in stores, expensive buttons off expensive clothes to put on their less expensive clothes in order to impress one another.

Early in life, I learned that dressing well could be done at a thrift store...buying expensive second hand clothes. I do not own a shirt or tie which costs more than 25 cents but someone before me paid a tremendous price for them.

My sons mother and grandmother convinced him that he was a prince and he believed it. I was amazed at the labels in his clothes from the most expensive stores. More marriages end because of money than anything else. A daughter, spoiled by parents, thinks she should start out married life with the accumulated wealth of her parents. Parents can work, live diligently, and leave a sizable estate for which children will fuss, fight and become enemies...all because of a narcissistic entrapment of trying to impress someone through the work of others.

The church has not escaped narcissism. Church members who sit at the back when they seldom attend will line up on Easter to parade down the aisle to the front.

Every time I see a city council meeting, a political meeting of any type, where there is a dais, rostrum, pulpit or even chancel I think about the movie, Mission to Moscow, in which Joseph Davies described the attitude of the politburo “talking down” to the little people...”big I, little you”. If there is ever a place in a democracy that citizens should be on a level playing field, it is at a time of church, government or judicial experience. I can pick out seven names from the local telephone directory and have a better representation, of the people about problems of people, than those seven on the local city council. When you see politicians or bureaucrats on the dais above you, talking down to you, keep this in mind. Because of a community organizer such as ACORN or paid for votes, they are in seats of power. The most narcissistic people I have known in my long life are self serving politicians, self serving ministry employees, self serving academics.

In 1941, after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, US-Japanese citizens on the West Coast predominantly, were rounded up and put in internment camps by President Roosevelt much like the FEMA internment camps prepared for US citizens in the future. The camps were surrounded by barbed wire. The tar papered barracks, with cracks in the floors, a common latrine, a common dining hall, totally degraded these citizens. Until a few years ago, this is the same type barracks to which America's youth went when entering the military service. Inside the prisoner compound, after all, they were already prisoners, there was a smaller stockade which housed those who did not dance to the exact tune that the government played. Are we not heading in the same direction? Your government owns everything including you and, if you do not dance correctly, you will find yourself in the innermost stockade. To date, in most cities, barbed wire has not yet been put around the city limits because the city is too anxious to annex surrounding areas for tax purposes.

Government has not escaped narcissism either. Instead of making numbers count, instead of taking care of the numbers you already have, governments are just busy counting numbers. As one state politician told me, “I feel the state money is mine to spend as I see fit.” I truly believe most city, county, state and federal officials are so narcissistic that they believe tax payers money belongs to them. I truly believe that most pastors and church officials, both of the individual church and the denomination feel that the money given to God's work belongs to them...the pastor, the church officials, the bishops, etc. One church in this country, who's pastor rode in a limousine, made sure all checks were made out to him. I heard him say, on the radio, it is my business if I choose to take the money for which God holds me responsible on my plane, out to the ocean, and dump it there. He took up two offerings in his church each service. This is not as irascible as most politicians who run on a platform of public service but who expect to be paid for that service and then an additional allowance for vehicle, meals, etc., etc., etc. Last year, the local city council went on a binge to Washington DC accompanied by their “significant other” for which the city tax payers were charged thousands of dollars for lavish accommodations. Of course, news media enables this narcissistic behavior because they will publish nothing about such extravagance.

I once asked a state official how he accounted for his expenses to a convention. He said, “if it is any of your business, I count the money in my wallet before I leave and I count it when I return along with all credit card receipts. Those are my expenses.” I had been told of his extravagance buying his family clothing and many fine gifts on these jaunt-lets. This is politician corruption narcissism at almost it's worst. Recently, in my city, the public was informed of the payment of a long serving ABC controller. Now it is found that he was, under the table engaged in other contract activities. The liquor business, the gambling business, is bad enough, when it is kept clean. It is like the buying of votes or elections. Right is right and wrong is wrong and there is no gray area. “The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever.” (Psa 37:18)

When you look in the mirror, those of you with eyes, you see your worst co-conspirator. Lord, help me overcome this bothersome thing I call myself. Monks have no sadness because they have no greed. It is only bad things that come back to haunt us. We do what we do because we believe what we believe. Most of our problems come from “stinkin' thinkin'. It all starts in the mind.