Losing Moses on the Freeway

In these essays on the 10 commandments, Chris Hedges presents a contemporary take on the essential Judeo-Christian guidelines for living. Hedges draws on his personal experiences as he tells of working as a caretaker for a church in the inner city of Roxbury, Massachusetts, while attending Harvard Divinity School. The neighborhood kids vandalize the area daily, and every day Hedges cleans it up. "Why couldn't they see my good intentions?" he asks. Later, after his life is threatened, he comes to realize something about his vocation: "My whole life is a lie." Hedges completes his course work, but does not get ordained. His essay on the second commandment addresses idol worship through a portrait of a Phishfollower, one of the fans who follow the band Phish from city to city, who tells Hedges that each concert is "like going to church." In another essays he asks, "What does it mean to honor a father?" Hedges recalls his own father, who told him, "To make a moral choice means taking a risk." Hedges does so when he gives a 2003 commencement address attacking the war in Iraq, only to have the audience boo him and talk-radio hosts revile him. Even his employer, the New York Times, takes him to the woodshed for speaking out. "I am my father's son," he concludes.