If your name is Bob, this column isn’t specifically about you. I promise. If I lie, stick a needle in my eye. No needles will come near my eyes today.
My first father-in-law is named Bob (sometimes known as Bovina Bob), and this is not about him. I could write about Bob easily. He’s been part of my life in one form or another since I was 12.
I stayed with him and my future mother-in-law, Joan, while my parents traveled. He was one of my youth baseball coaches. I did crazy, nothing-can-ever-hurt-us teenage-boy stuff with his son. I eventually married his youngest daughter. He’s a grandfather to my children. He was my college algebra teacher after I married his daughter. How awkward is it for your father-in-law to have proof that his daughter married a complete moron at math? I learned a valuable lesson under his tutelage: D’s get degrees.
But I digress.
So “What about Bob?” is the title of a 1991 movie starring Richard Dreyfuss as a psychiatrist and Bill Murray as his patient.
In one scene, Bob shares a poem: “Roses are red, violets are blue, I’m a schizophrenic… and so am I.” Those lines are delivered by Bill Murray with comedic precision. I can’t help but laugh every time.
Schizophrenia is a serious condition, and my heart goes out to the families affected. I won’t pretend to understand all the clinical details, nor will I pigeonhole those who suffer.
However, I’m going to appropriate the condition as an apt way to describe the culture in which we live. For all practical purposes, it seems as if we’ve lost touch with reality.
This is not meant to take sides or adopt a partisan stance, but my goodness, it feels like we’re awash in hate. It feels like we’ve lost all sense of right and wrong across the board. If I were a betting man, I’d make a sure bet that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
We live in a broken world, a fractured society, where craziness is running amok. But maybe it doesn’t have to be as bad as it is. Maybe we could find a way to recognize the humanity of us all. And maybe we might ask the question, what about Bob?
You see, Bob, Sally Sue, Tim, Matt, Katherine, and any other name you might mention are all part of humanity.
People.
And the easiest solution to the mess we’ve created is simply to apply the words of Jesus: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself!
What about Bob is what about all of us!
“Above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8 CSB)
Les Ferguson, Jr. is a minister and faith-based author. He can be reached at lfergusonjr@gmail.com
