I listen to country music more than I usually admit...
I also drink "more than five drinks in one night" more than I usually admit...
But I'm pretty proud of all my interfaith work!
These have all been weighing on me recently... Monday my friend asked if I'd heard Carrie Underwood's new single... And I had. The transformation was complete. I had become a country music fan.
The next day I went to the doctor's office to get medicine for my cough, and every time they asked me about my alcohol drinking habits, I had to admit to "more than five drinks in one night."
Today, I finished an essay on the importance of interfaith for this obnoxious require writing class, and I really appreciated the opportunity to learn more about interfaith on the world stage, and it made me even prouder to be working on this stuff.
This week has basically led me to this point. It's as if a sign has told me that this is the time to share my love of Toby Keith's music. Yes. The above song inspired me the first time it came on the radio. For someone who (apparently) loves country, enjoys drinking (perhaps a little too much), and works in interfaith, this song has become somewhat of an anthem. It's a celebration of diversity, honoring it, appreciating it, yet finding unity in the stupor of drunkenness. Building a community in the least likely... But somehow most likely of places.
Now... Realistically, drunkenness isn't necessarily open to everyone, as many religious groups prohibit either drunkenness or any alcohol at all (many Muslim and Christian sects for example). You probably won't see many turbans next to those ball caps considering Sikhs are also forbidden to get drunk, but I think the sentiment is nice.
That at our most vulnerable, we can appreciate each other as human beings. That when "drunk talk is sober thought," we can become friends. That even though we're all so different, we're all part of one community. So maybe in this song, it's an American bar where we all get schwasted, but it could be a college campus, or a workplace, or a bowling league or anywhere really.
Maybe it's also because alcohol can often lead to some really bad decisions. Some really hurtful ones too. A 2004 NIBRS (the FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System) study found that hate crimes are significantly more likely when under the influence of drugs/alcohol than other, "unbiased crimes."* The dream of alcohol bringing us together rather than dividing us is an appealing one. Or does this song paint an idealized view? Does it make us think that at such parties, we grow together when we really grow apart? Does it make liberal hippies like me rejoice in the belief that we can all just take substances and sit around singing "Kum Baya My Lord", and make us forget there's really a problem, even for just a moment?
It's definitely easy for me to sit in my car listening to this song and reminiscing about the time I bonded with some Mexican and Salvadoran guys at a party and they shared their beer with me. Or the time I saw the Muslim guy from the party Thursday night at Friday prayers. Or so many other instances of my own positive experiences in the field of interfaith at college parties.
So this is the dream, for me at least. That we find unity in diversity in every situation, and especially that when we get drunk (as so many of us often do...) we will embrace our neighbors in a drunken stupor rather than striking him down in anger. Maybe we won't know who we're embracing, and maybe we won't remember in the morning, but an embrace it will be!
So thank you Toby Keith! Keep inspiring us to truck on towards a future of interfaith, diversity, cooperation and love!
Amen!...?
*Messner S., McHugh, S., & Felson R. (2004). Distinctive characteristics of assaults motivated by bias. Criminology 42: 585-618.
No comments:
Post a Comment