Sorry for the long delay. Life has gotten especially busy for me. Maybe for you as well. Thoughts on our American Experiment. Taken from a book I may publish in the near future. Thanks, as always, for reading and for your support. John
LIFE’S TOUGH RIGHT NOW
The plight of ancient fears,
old prejudices and rhetoric,
inflamed, and legion.
The daily drip of contagion, streams
of alienation. Double-speak and lies.
Is there no one to put on the brakes?
We wait for the eye of the storm
but are surrounded by turbulent winds.
The upheaval, the cryptic, the meanness,
the high-voltage accusations, sting, and bite.
Waves of flinch cause us to dig in or to flee.
It is exhausting. We hide. We protest meekly
the world gone out-of-control. We stay closeted
close to our tribe. We maintain good business.
Deception and the ever-fertile mind invents
motive and cause. The game of Us versus Them.
Listening is inert. Compromise is asleep.
Courtesy, a lost art. Lines have been drawn.
Too clever by far, we watch for openings to slander.
In the game of gotcha we high-five the defeat of others,
callous to our own blindness and mutual defeat.
No one testifies to consolation and compromise.
How will the center hold
if there is no shared center,
No place where we can meet?
Wars rage. Culture wars are real. Nations tremble
at the uncertain outcome of our jealous affairs.
Is life-support what once was glory?
Great God who watches over the machinations
and schemes, the flight of dreams, the cultivation
of good, guide us.
Be the lighthouse in our fevered darkness.
Find the turning of the key when blunt hysteria
gives way to principle. Remind us of our roots.
Plot our course. Grant us another day.
Cultivate pride in a nation that has its scars,
its burdens, clearly remembered. Meet us
in the fiery furnace of our national conversation.