Natalie and Me

Wanted: Priest. Must have a natural air of superiority, a glint in the eye that suggests certain arcane knowledge, be fluent in an impractical foreign language, soft-spoken, imperturbable, mysterious and yet, readily available to quell riots, guide small children, and oversee community barbeques. Religious affiliation immaterial. Gender not an issue. Sexual orientation irrelevant. Must have reliable transportation. Weed free lawn a plus. Applications being taken at local Cable Access Television studios.

Any takers?
Plenty of wannabees.
Very few qualified applicants.
Priests are like white Bengal Tigers: rarely seen, except in captivity; on the endangered species list, and going fast.
What we have today – in large part, is a priestless society. What we have, instead of priests, are tribes, where behavior is dictated by what the group decides, not by the example or teachings – or fear of, any one individual.
It wasn’t that long ago, though, that there were priests on every corner.
When I was a boy fathers were the priests of the family: they didn’t have to explain themselves, what they said was law. Of course what many of them said was, to put it nicely, rubbish – but fathers were given a great deal of slack.
Little League coaches. When I played for Lyons Nursery way back in the sixties (the 1960’s, wise guy) we called our coach, Mister, Sir, or a combination thereof, and though he hardly said a word to any of us, we were under his power. I still repeat the few instructions he gave me, as if they had been inscribed into a stone tablet by the finger of God: ‘when the ball is hit, your first step is always backward; your hands are faster than the ball – stay back and wait on it, then explode; I don’t care how hot it is, keep that shirt tucked in!’
In my youth it seems we had more than our fair share of priests. Back then, believe it or not, even priests were actually considered.. well, priests. TV announcers were priests too. Gas station attendants. Teachers. Policemen. Even the milkman – in his white suit, gave you the impression that he knew something you did not (what exactly Half and Half is).
Musicians were priests too, in a way, back then. Can anyone imagine Fifty Cent or Jon Bon Jovi stopping a riot today? But in 1968 that’s exactly what James Brown did in Boston.
Forty years later even the church doesn’t have enough priests to go around, and the riots are outside the church itself.
Maybe it was just plain ignorance, on our part. Priests have always depended on the ignorance of others, for their positions of power. In the early days of Christianity, priests – or monks, had secret knowledge no one else possessed, and they weren’t about to share it either.
The 21st Century might be called the Age of the Revealed Secret. Want to build a nuclear bomb, cook like Julia Child, or chart a hurricane’s path – Google it.
The 21st Century might also be called The Age of the Defrocked Priest. Today, what our society outwardly raises up, it simultaneously brings down. We pay millions to create celebrities, it seems, solely for the privilege of ridiculing them. We flock to massive church stadiums, hoping to be told that we are god-like. We elect individuals to positions of great power, than quickly dismiss them for their revealed humanity.
In the absence of true priests though, we are confronted by a kind of cosmological anarchy. In the absence of a tribal leader, primitive man could look to the sun and the moon as figures of authority, but today – one by one, even the heavenly bodies are being devalued. Pluto – God of Underworld, is not even a planet anymore. The moon – long thought to be the main source of madness or inspiration, is now our solar system’s local landfill.
I guess what I really mean to say, is that I am going to miss Natalie.
We all knew it was coming but it was still a shock when she made the announcement last week. Natalie Jacobsen was – and in some way, still is an authentic priestess.
Sure, she had lost some of her power, in recent years: she had divorced from Chet; been given a lesser role at Channel Five; gotten older, grayer, and was not sufficiently glib for modern television journalism’s 15 second stories - but she still possessed that priest-like combination of wisdom, empathy, and authority.
Her departure has a tinge of irony, in that what this new world of bloggers and cable access action heroes aspire to - IMO, is membership in the same secret society that Natalie recently belonged to. Today, instead of a few hundred high priests, we have a few million priests-in-training, and no guarantee of graduation day.
The plain truth is that we don’t have enough time to listen to a million sermons, or enough shelf space for a million bobble-headed heroes. We need our Natalies, if just to have time left over to mow the lawn and shoo the turkeys away.
And we need our Natalies if just to keep the sound of opinions down to a roar. In the absence of a priestly class, the noise of the masses is deafening, as each tries to shout over the other.
As for me, though I am going to miss Natalie, I don’t feel it’s the end of the world. My life goes on. I still have my Latin lessons, my Peace studies, and my regular neighborhood barbeque to keep me busy. I also work as an umpire for the local Little League, and am taking the Dr. Phil Relationship Mediation Correspondence Course. Oh, and I have this pulpit, that is, this column too: every week I have the opportunity to share my concerns with you in a quiet, dignified manner. We may not always agree, but I think we respect one another.
Now if I can only find myself a cool uniform.