Dear HCN,
We Americans are really
something (-The Sacred & Profane Collide…,” HCN,
5/26/97).
We spend a century trying to annihilate
the natives so we can steal all their best land, land that contains
their holiest sites, their natural cathedrals. Somehow a few manage
to survive our onslaught, but we banish these people to hostile
patches of earth that we have no use for.
Then,
when their descendants ask us to please show a little respect for
the religious places we’ve taken, we grow incensed that we can’t
swill beer, set up the barbecue and relieve our poodles any damn
place we well please.
I fear the worst, that
we’ve finally grown so shallow and tacky, that we’re so completely
bankrupt of spirit that we really can’t conceive of anything more
sacred than recreational frolic. We should be hit upside the head
and sent packing to our zillion other roadside attractions that
have already been cheapened by whiny, crass, touristy antics,
because if we can’t find it in our hearts to tolerate another’s
sense of reverence and honor the genuinely holy places where
reverence is expressed, then soulless, plastic, gyp joints are all
that we truly deserve.
David
Seppa
Denver,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Are we so shallow of spirit?.
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