Perhaps, it certainly seems plausible to me, what many regular people are talking about these days in America is in different ways a psychological/philosophical/pragmatic/spiritual healthy, sustaining and meaningful alternative to walls, divisiveness, fear and disillusionment. Maybe there are rivulets running throughout our culture that gurgle in different words JFK’s well known inauguration refrain regarding turning upside down the priorities of self aggrandizement contrasted with what I can do for my neighbor and the world around me.
There is proposed in the common religions of the world, as well as the Comanches that ruled the Liberal, Tucumcari, Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle … a belief that is fairly well summarized in the statement, “Love my neighbor as myself”. In other words we share the same air, aspirations, mortality — why not see my fellows and our common ground as a mutual and seamless whole? We are in this together, why not act like it?
We may not agree on means. Perhaps compulsory service to our nation doesn’t resonate with sufficient numbers of citizens, that’s the beauty of Democracy and the jury of peers system we have so long experimented with. Maybe we can in sufficient critical mass form coalition around the concept of “union”. In my experience doing something for others is paradoxically the surest path to finding myself in a byproduct of peace and gratitude.
Long ago my cousin won the Liberal pancake race even though she was near term in her pregnancy. She ran, babe in womb, carrying a pan with pancake then flipping it without incident to pancake, awaiting child or herself. Maybe it’s a united and collective work Required to find equanimity in the quilt of action, vulnerability, exuberance, acceptance, effort, decision, service, compassion and, ultimately, progress.
Long abandoned Route 66 in the United States is a likely place to meet visitors from other countries, they come to view Americana. Thank you Bobby Troup, John Steinbeck, ABC TV and a thousand other artists. Forgive us for all the sundown rule towns that existed along its route. We did build a concrete ribbon and travel it in search of progress, maybe we have aspirational optimism built into our heritage as immigrants. My hope and theory is we do.
