They weren’t the kind of men who normally heaped praise and adulation
on another. What was going on? I took a seat on the near edge of the circle.
Then it came clear. Here was a bunch of senior men,
woodworkers all, taking turns praising the owner of our local lumber store. One
by one they were going around stating their greatest blessing for getting to
buy lumber from him. You can’t imagine.
When they came to me, I hadn’t had time to think. “Tell us,”
one man said, “what is your greatest blessing in getting to deal with this great
man.”
“I don’t recall,” I said. They all laughed.
It is comforting to know that we still find humor during
these strange times in America.
What isn’t comforting to know is that while we are laughing,
another institution that helped make our country great is being dismantled in a
systematic effort to strip us of individual protections, rights, and comfort.
What isn’t comforting to know is that while we are laughing,
children are going to bed hungry, innocent people are getting shot on our
streets, our oceans are becoming barren, and veterans, their widows, and their
orphans are being stripped of the promise of succor promised by Abraham Lincoln
in 1865. All that time, presidential power is being wasted on the re-kindling
of a nearly 60-year-old cold war against country whose leader who died a year
ago and whose people take no harmful actions against our country.
What isn’t comforting to know that almost an entire presidential
administration is under investigation for wrongdoing and that, if toppled, we
will see a new president who doesn’t believe in the most basic building blocks
of science.
What isn’t comforting to know is that a foreign country, our
sworn enemy for more than 50 years, likely affected the results of our county’s
most recent presidential election.
What isn’t comforting to know is that the prestige of
America in most parts of the world is melting as fast as the polar icecaps.
What isn’t comforting to know is the level of anger and
sadness that is covering our cities, landscapes, and neighborhoods.
Speaking of Lincoln, it is written that he used humor to
ease the cosmic pains of the terrible struggles he led the country through.
Maybe it is “altogether fitting and proper” that we do as well.
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| President Lincoln with his generals after Antietam, America's bloodiest single day. They say he relied on humor to ease his pain. Can we? |
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