Rev. Martin Bartel: Where are you, America?

The Scripture readings prescribed for worship in my faith tradition on a recent Sunday included, “The Lord God called to the man and asked him, ‘Where are you?’ ” (Gen 3:9) This is the first recorded question posed by God; it must therefore be critical.

Adam answers, “I hid myself,” as if God didn’t already know that.

I wonder if Adam misunderstood the question and if God’s first question is worth pondering by all of us as citizens of the United States, particularly as elections approach.

“Where are you?” means so much more than what is our physical location. It is an existential question requiring us to exercise probing introspection and look deeply inside at what is happening with and around us. It requires honest self-reflection of where we find ourselves, how we find ourselves, what brought us here, what our trajectory is and whether to change course.

I wonder if that’s exactly what God asks Adam in that Genesis interrogatory. Is it to be heard as the worried voice of a parent looking for a child who has wandered away? Is it a harkening back to an earlier, more suitable time and place? Is it firstly a rhetorical question that needs to be pondered seriously and then ultimately acted upon when the answer is less than satisfactory?

Maybe the question is, “Where are we today as a nation?”

Where are we in acknowledging the dignity of human life?

In promoting peace, locally, nationally and internationally?

In upholding family life and respecting the role of parents?

In striving for religious freedom?

In caring for the poor and administering economic justice?

Where are we in providing access to affordable health care?

In honoring our roots as a land of immigrants?

In promoting quality education for our young?

In combating injustice, violence, and discrimination?

In caring for the earth?

In advancing truth?

In improving the universal common good and responsible world citizenship?

Can supporting dictators who trample their people’s human rights abroad be justified in the perceived need of our national security? Should schools be making judgments regarding the education and welfare of students without the approval of parents? Is access to quality health care a matter of who can more easily pay for it?

Instead of hiding as Adam and Eve did in the Garden, let’s honestly examine our national life, admit where we are and plan where we’d like to be as a society. That daunting endeavor can guide us, offering us new opportunities and possibilities.

We are a nation of immigrants — surely we can still find a solution that balances legal immigration and a path to citizenship without sacrificing the security of our citizenry. We can get to the moon — can’t we protect our environment while simultaneously growing the economy? We’ve fought in untold wars — certainly, we’ve learned something about creating the right conditions for peace.

In Lewis Carroll’s classic, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” there is a poignant interaction between Alice and the mischievously grinning Chesire Cat:

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.

Alice: I don’t much care where.

The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.

If we don’t much care where we want to go, then it doesn’t much matter where we are, and which path we take. But if we dare to maintain our historic greatness as a nation, we must not fail to ask and then act upon that probing question, “Where are you, America?”

Rev. Martin R. Bartel, OSB, is a monk-priest and archabbot of Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe.