Notes From The Hidden Years : Reflections on Spirituality, Politics and Other Stuff - Softcover

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Born in 1951, Chuck Cutolo was raised on Long Island, New York and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Hamilton College and Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. After working for 17 years on Capitol Hill, most of which as the legislative director for Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), and after a brief stint at Catholic Charities, he is currently the counsel to the Democrats on the Nassau County Legislature. Although he has written numerous speeches, op-ed pieces and letters that have appeared under the name of others, Notes From the Hidden Years: Reflections on Spirituality, Politics and Other Stuff, is the first book-length work published under his own name. He now lies with his wife, Denise Pratesi, in Westbury, New York.

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Lowering The Volume On The Call To Inaction. "Americans are a generous people." We hear those words a lot. And, in some sense, it's true. In the face of natural disasters, both in our own country or on another continent, Americans have been very generous. Whether it's clothing drives for shivering Bosnians or food drives for starving Somalis, many Americans respond from the heart and act.

Many, but I dare say, not most. For most Americans, the call to inaction comes in many voices: "I can't afford it;" "I've got my own problems:' "I didn't know about it;" "How many times can you give;" "There's always suffering over there;" It's bad, but they're used to it;" "They do it to themselves;" and "Not my problem." On a continuum of conscience, some of these explanations are understandable and some are simply reprehensible. Sometimes our response to these voices shows up as insensitivity to the "next" disaster in a poverty stricken country, and sometimes it shows itself in our walking past the "next" homeless panhandler on the street. No one is exempt. Certainly not me.

But if all of us at times respond to the call to inaction, none of us should feel good about it. Sure, there are times when the needs of our own family crowd out the needs of our human family, and we have to make choices. However, in those situations, our failing is not that we choose to put a higher priority on our spouses or our parents. No, our failing - even our sin - would be if we didn't feel some sense of regret that we could not do more...for more.

After all, our finances are limited and there are, in fact, only twenty-four hours in a day. So, at some point, if we are to be realistic, generosity can't be defined by the phrase "here it is" so much as an attitude of "I wish I could." However, when "I wish I could" degenerates into a content and smug "I really just don't give a damn," then we have become a citizen in good standing in the bleak an grasping world described over 150 years ago by Charles Dickens. After all, what led Ebenezer Scrooge to be visited by four ghosts on one Christmas Eve was not that he failed to give but that he had elevated selfishness and insensitivity to a virtue.

Now, most people don't go that nearly that far. If they did, Scrooge would not have been singled out. And he would not have gotten all of that bad press over all these years. But, how many of us, including me, thumb through our own mail, especially during the Christmas season, and pay no greater mind to a plea from this charity or that one than we do to the fifteenth Eddie Bauer-like catalog that we have received that week ? Not many of us are willing, just for a moment to transport ourselves mentally to a refugee camp in some far away place where there is little food, less sanitation and virtually no hope for anything better.

But, if we do make that effort to see in the bewildered eyes of a starving child our own reflection, how long will the call to inaction continue to overwhelm the weak but many voices pleading for us to reach out and help ?

Again, let's be real. If the only choice was between listening to the call to inaction and giving all we have to the poor, the call to inaction would win out every time. But what if our goal is more modest and involves a simple two-step process ? First, ironically, we need to become more attuned the call to inaction so that we can recognize its occasionally soothing and seductive tone. Second, we need to learn to ignore it "just a few more times" than we have in the past.

So, on an individual level, this is not the stuff of revolution. But if the call to inaction is ignored "just a few more times" by each person in a family or in a community, the result can be like the mountain springs that individually bubble to the surface but as a collectivity become a stream and, eventually, a powerful river.

What I am setting out here could be characterized and even criticized as the "lite" version of St. Matthew's gospel of the Last Judgment." According to St. Matthew, Christ was not so equivocal. He didn't say, "I was hungry and you regretted not giving me anything to eat." He didn't say, "I was hungry and you tried but didn't succeed in giving me anything to eat." He said simply, "I was hungry and you gave me to eat." So, in today's terms, Christ was a pretty result-oriented guy. But he was also a carpenter and had to have a practical side as well. It's easy to imagine that he understood the value of starting out small and building up from there. After all, when it came to picking apostles, there were a lot of numbers bigger than twelve and a lot of smarter folks than the ones he chose. Yeah...and look what he was able to do with even that bunch.