Alderperson Alex Schultz's (District 9) Invocation At 03/15/2023 Common Council Meeting

Mayor Jake Woodford: Tonight's invocation will be delivered by Alder Schultz.

Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9): Never easy to follow George. That I know. One second here. I just lost it. Well, I may have to wing it.

So, I struggled a little bit with coming up with his invocation. It's been over a year since I've done one, and this one in particular involves a day on the calendar that nobody really celebrates, per se, and only three percent of us actually recognize it. And I also know that when I get up, I can grandstand a little bit, and I didn't want to get on my soapbox too—soapbox too much. So that's what I was trying to figure out how to broach this subject. And then something happened to me last week that gave me the segue way.

I had an interaction with a fellow human being and it set the tone for this invocation. So, I'd just finished shoveling my mother in law's driveway, her double driveway and sidewalk, and that's after I had done my own and my Bnb's and was feeling rather exhausted. And I left her house, got to the intersection—she lives on Ravinia Place—and got the intersection of Memorial and Ravinia, and I was looking northbound [to] make my—on exit, er turn into Memorial northbound, and I saw an elderly gentleman walking down the street hobbling around quite trepidatiously and quite slowly. Looked like he was hurting or was just having some significant issues trying to get down the street.

And he wasn't on the sidewalk. He was actually on Memorial Drive with a lot of snow that had just recently fallen along the banks of that two-lane highway and was putting himself in significant risk of those two lanes. And I was wondering why he was there and noticed that he was occasionally thumbing for ride. He would turn in thumb, and then kind of hobble a little bit. I mean hobble, picture Biden with a cane and a medical boot on his foot, and you could kind of get the idea.

He's coming down the road, in what was a very precarious situation. And I just immediately tense and stressed and anxious for this individual's safety. And I thought, “My goodness, I hope someone pulls over pretty quickly, or at least, puts their flashers on and gives this guy a ride or gets him at least off the highway.” And I really couldn't do anything else in my situation but sit there and watch this unfold.

And he was about two thirds of the way up the block. And I'm thinking, "Come on people," and cars are passing, and many of them just zooming by probably not recognizing that he's there, and some of them recognizing and just shifting slightly to get around him. And but no one out of probably two dozen vehicles, made any effort to either slow down, turn around, or offer this individual any help.

And so, I just kind of sat there until he made his way to me on I asked this individual if you wanted a ride. And he said, "Thank goodness. Thank you for stopping and helping me out here. No one wanted to stop. I just got out of the hospital. I was there overnight. I was on an IV. I'm—they didn't give me anything to drink, anything eat. I'm really thirsty. It was going to be an hour and a half before I could get my cab ride, and I just wanted to get home. And I just had a really rough morning. They said I might lose my leg. And I'm just—I can't believe how thankful I am that you stopped and gave me a ride." And I'm thinking, you know, "Why me?"

So, reminder, this is 11 o'clock in the morning, and he'd already probably hobbled three or four blocks from St E's to get to Memorial Drive. And so I drove him to Menasha, and got to know him a little bit. And when he stepped out of the vehicle, he said, "God bless you. God bless you, son. Cannot believe how thankful I am that you did this." And in any normal conversation if someone says that to me, I usually have something snarky to say like, "I don't believe in Him, so thanks anyway," or something equally dismissive. But—and that's kind of what I was thinking in my head, but what came out of my mouth was, "Well, certainly, that was the Christian thing to do." And then I thought, "Why would I say?" That that's not really like me to invoke a religious belief when I'm not.

And it occurred to me that when I was thinking about this, I was filling a void in my head perhaps or the void that was presented by all those vehicles that passed by, because if you think about it, roughly 75% of the population in the Midwest identifies as Christian or either Presbyterian or Catholic, and maybe another 20% as some other religious identity or agnostic. And there's just a small amount of us that identify as atheist. So, of those, let's just call it 24 vehicles, 18 of them are likely pass—practicing Christians, another five practicing some other religious or agnostic. And then just one person, who happened to be me, who practices no religion whatsoever ended up giving this ride to this human being who felt compelled to thank me in his way.

And it was just an odd situation like, why is it that the atheist in this story is the one to give this individual assistance when most of the religious tenants, or the ones that I understand, would put this situation firmly in their—on their shoulders to remediate? And, and I guess all I can think about is maybe it's the worldview that I have that, you know, we share this earth. It's a singular space. I don't believe there's another one to go to after we're gone. And so all the interactions I have with either the human beings that I interact with, or the other life on this planet is singular, and it's in this very truncated, instantaneous lifetime of mine. And so, I think, "Why not help this individual? What is there to fear?"

I mean, I get that circumstances are tricky on a highway like that. Not everyone could pull over or not—or maybe they had family and would not entertain the notion. But certainly, out of all those vehicles, there must have been some people who could have made that effort.

And so, I just encourage you as you think about Atheist Day, to not think about atheism but think about your own religion if you practice it and consider doing things instead of just living behind the words of their religion, live behind the actions of religion. And if you find yourself in a situation where there's someone in need, take a moment, pause and consider his situation or that individual's situation, and if you have time and a little bit of empathy to reach out and help someone. Thank you