Featured Writer: Terry Sanville

SINS OF OMISSION

As a Catholic School kid, I learned all about sin. Committing a Mortal Sin could send me straight to hell, andVenial Sins would earn me a few years of burning in purgatory before being allowed into heaven. Even thinking bad stuff was sinful – and for boys, ogling girls and pondering the nasty became a repeat offense.

At first, I thought a person had to do something in order to sin. But then the priests explained another important concept – failure to do something that can and should be done is also a sin, a Sin of Omission. It wasn’t until I became a government worker and observed our political process that the importance of this concept became clearer. Consider the following mortal examples:

1 National Health Care. Our country experienced run-away medical and insurance costs that deprived millions of life and the pursuit of happiness. Yet we continue to debate this issue while poor and middle-class people die. President Clinton tried to institute reforms in the 1990’s but failed. President Obama has made progress. But these modest gains are already being challenged. How many more years will go by before we experience meaningful relief?

2 Global Climate Change and Clean Energy. For years we’ve known that carbon based energy forms are finite and that their use pollutes land, water and air, leads to global climate change, and involves us in volatile Middle-Eastern affairs. Yet our government still provides petrochemical companies with an oil depletion allowance (billions of dollars in tax breaks) while only lip service is paid to clean energy development. Continued support of old technology (e.g. support for drilling of the East Coast, the Gulf Coast, Alaska, and oil shale deposits) only increases the severity of this particular sin of omission.

3 Real Estate, Banking, and Investment. Personal and corporate greed and our desire to blindly let the good times roll with minimal government safeguards contributed to the current economic downturn – that now requires massive taxpayer bailouts (funds that could have paid for public health care). Was the myth of our so-called free market system so strong that we allowed ourselves to be suckered into a hands-off approach? Will we let it happen again?

4 Natural Disasters. Growing up in the 1950s, I remember newscasts about floods along the Mississippi and hurricanes battering the eastern seaboard. They will continue to occur. But we wait to respond to natural disasters rather than taking meaningful preemptive steps to reduce or eliminate their effects. What will happen when the next great earthquakes hit the New Madrid fault in the Mid-West, the Oregon and Washington Coast, or California? Will yet another President fly over a scene of destruction in Air Force 1 and wring her hands? I’d rather have meaningful and sustained hazard-reduction programs than more flights!

5 Immigration. In 1964, the U.S. ended its long-standing guest worker program with Mexico (The Bracero Program). But the demand for cheap labor continued to grow. We now have millions of hard working tax paying souls involved in the agriculture, construction, and service industries who are part of an illegal shadow workforce, one that we depend on but complain about for a variety of sometimes-hateful reasons. How long will families live in these shadows before our country creates an equitable solution? Es muy estupido. ¿No es verdad?

6 Unemployment and Education. When economic times are tough, the loss of jobs hurts millions of people. But if our country and planet are to survive, economies and cultures must evolve to become sustainable from an environmental perspective. Yet every proposed change is couched in terms of jobs lost, as old sectors die off, rather than in terms of opportunities gained. Why haven’t we insisted that our government and our educational institutions better prepared our populace for shifts to greener industries and services? Why can’t we get ahead of the game, become leaders in these sectors?

The result of these and other sins of omission is that our country and possibly the planet will struggle through turbulent times, with the outcome uncertain. Unfortunately, we Americans sometimes punish public officials at the polls for taking positive action to change the status quo. And so many politicians sit on the sidelines and carp at those pursuing initiatives, I suspect because sins of omission are less damaging at election time.

Personally, I would prefer a government that takes actions to achieve a desired objective and fails, over one that fails because of inaction. But then I grew up Catholic, and a sin is a sin, whether it’s one of omission or commission. We’re all accountable for both types.

Terry Sanville lives in San Luis Obispo, California with his artist-poet wife (his in-house editor) and one plump cat (his in-house critic). He writes full time, producing short stories, novels, essays, poems, and an occasional play. Since 2005, his short stories have been accepted by more than 150 literary and commercial journals, magazines, and anthologies. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his story “The Sweeper.”
Terry is a retired urban planner and an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist – who once played with a symphony orchestra backing up jazz legend George Shearing.

Email: Terry Sanville

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