Splintered

Re-finishing our bedroom door, I had lain it across two sawhorses in our garage. Since our house was built in1859, the door had many layers of milk paint, oil paint and latex, all of which were peeling and bumpy like an old billboard. I was using an industrial paint remover, but that only worked on the 20th c. layers; milk paint is forever! Along with paint scrapers, I had used many sheets of sandpaper, which got ruined by all the balls of gummy schmutz: old paint, paint remover and sawdust. 

It was a hot day, even with the garage door open. I was sweating and the sweat dripped into the goo on the door’s surface, making it worse. Removing my big heavy work gloves I wiped my wet face with the back of my hand. I looked with disgust at all the paint chips and dust on the surface and reflexively swiped my un-gloved hand across the door’s surface to brush it all off. Instantly, I felt a sharp stab of pain in my finger. A jagged piece of wood had separated from the surface and part of it was sticking out of the side of my ring finger. Cursing, I ran upstairs and pulled the wood out with my tweezers. Dousing the wound with Peroxide, I went back to work. 

That night, my finger throbbed terribly. I feared dirt and paint remover had gotten inside the wound and infected it. I kept antibiotic cream on it, but the pain persisted, keeping me awake. After a few nights of this, I checked the wound with a magnifying glass, but saw nothing. “This finger is still sore from the splinter and it’s been a whole week,” I complained to Dan as weI lay in bed. Absently, I massaged my finger and was surprised to feel a sharp point on each side.  Touching both at once, I could feel movement inside the injured finger. A part of the splinter had gone straight through the lower part of my finger and was still in there!

Next week, my hand surgeon and I stared at the x-ray. That splinter was the size of a toothpick and had gone into my pinky finger as well! As we scheduled surgery to remove it, I heard a nurse exclaim, “You gotta see this x-ray. You won’t believe it!” to another nurse. The wood was surgically removed the following week. What I had hoped was a very minor problem had turned out to be costly and time consuming…all because I hadn’t been paying attention.

Our American government, like my hand, has been wounded through inattention. Americans have always paid dearly for our unsolved problems: racism, sexism, and inequality. These are so deeply ingrained in our culture that it takes constant vigilance and effort to keep them in check. Recently, we failed to pay attention to the job at hand. We didn’t notice that we had removed our intellectual work gloves; we had grown lazy and self-absorbed. Before we knew it, our culture was full of splinters of greed, ignorance and self-righteousness.

When the body becomes infected, the cause of the infection must be eradicated; cut out and got rid of. But this will involve both time and pain. Ignoring the splinter, hoping it will somehow dissolve and disappear is fruitless. Not only must every piece of the splinter itself be dug out, but all the other corruption imbedded along with it must be removed. Only then can the wound be cleaned and begin healing.

Americans need to learn from our history. In the past, we let our guard down, distracted by little nagging issues and ignored the big ones. Imagine how different America would be had we dealt with indigenous people’s land rights, banned slavery when it first started, passed laws giving women equal rights, limited weapon ownership, insisted upon decent working conditions and reasonable pay for workers, and established some form of health care for all of our citizens! 

 I didn’t notice the splinter that pierced my finger until the pain finally caught my attention. Let us not wait until our current wounds become septic. This time, let us work to remove the splinter that currently causes us so much trouble while we still can.