Sailing To Oblivium: June 25, 2017

We expect cruelty in this country. After all, slavery was written into our Constitution. We also expect goodness. We fought a Civil War over it, one of our most tragic but most noble moments.

We hope for the best but we don’t always plan for the worst. This past week has seen the results of this. Meanness is oozing from our national psyche like noxious gas from a garbage dump. Oh, we’ve seen cruelty since the Civil War. The long and horrible era of the Jim Crow South. The destruction of ways of life of the original inhabitants of our country. The Joseph McCarthy era. The subjugation of women. We’ve seen much. And many of us have had to endure so much more than I, a white male of European descent.

The meanness and cruelty of a health care act—specifically designed to punish the poor and elderly while benefitting the rich—prepared in secret and brazenly tossed out for expedited passage still makes us cringe, though.

Even though we might not be religious ourselves, we could once take comfort in faiths that taught love, compassion, and social justice. Those old voices are being drowned out now, though, by voices that teach hate, anger, and greed.

What can we do? Allow me an idea.

Sometimes in the middle of the night, beset by worries and falling prey to despair, I comfort myself by forcing pleasant images as pictures into my mind to cover over and erase the bad. I think I’ll do that now, even in my waking hours. I can, if I choose, maintain the images of

- President Abraham Lincoln urging us to listen to “the better angels of our nature.”

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt assuring us “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

- President Harry S. Truman telling us “I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.”

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower telling us “This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”

- President John F. Kennedy telling us to “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

- President Lyndon B. Johnson, ending the first State of the Union message after the assassination of President Kennedy, promising us that “We shall overcome.”

And many others, any of which could erase the thoughts of early morning soundbites, delivered via social media, by a frightfully insecure, immoral, and divisive man.

We have had moments of cruelty in this country and we have had moments of sublime glory. We have had bad leaders in this country and we have had great ones. We have had bad days and we have had good ones. If we all join hands together, we can have great ones again. We will truly and surely overcome.