On An Unclear Day it is Hard to see Anything

"Whatever happens,

those who have learned

to love one another

have made their way

to the lasting world

and will not leave,

whatever happens."

 --Wendell Berry, Given

Sitting around with a group of friends we were bemoaning the state of things. Somebody said: Looks like the Republicans are going to take the House in a few weeks. Somebody else piped up: It isn’t just that—it’s that some of the people we are about to put into office elect are totally unqualified. What’s wrong with people? somebody asked. Can’t they remember just two years ago when the nation was on the edge of another depression—and we’re gonna put the same people who gave us this back into office? Another wanted to know how we could possibly extend tax cuts for the rich when the country needs every penny it can get. The problem is, someone else said, much of the country doesn’t think the change Obama promised hasn’t happened. Oh, she said, they forget about health care and this move toward accountability in government and the bail out of the banks which I am told saved the whole country from financial ruin. Another intoned, This is a country of three hundred million people—you don’t turn a boat that size around easily—it takes some time. We all went our separate ways feeling pretty hopeless.

It isn’t easy to keep one’s perspective when it looks like everything nailed down is coming loose. And it certainly isn’t easy when we have breaking news, whatever that is, 24 hours a day. Yet—perspective is what we all need. The long view—not some panicky reaction to everything.



I keep remembering what Ernie Campbell, one-time Pastor of Riverside said in one of his sermons. “Every battle is not Armageddon.” We live in a culture where every crisis is the end of the world. Whatever happened to Terry Jones? Who, you say. You know the guy in Florida that was on TV day after day saying he was holding a Burn the Koran Day in his church? Why that was two weeks ago—we’ve moved on. We don’t even hear much about the Muslim Center two and a half blocks from Ground Zero. A wise person said that after the mid-term elections nobody will care. We have got to quit reacting as if every little crisis is the end of the world.

I’ve been reading Ron White’s biography of Abraham Lincoln, A. Lincoln. Weeks after Lincoln was sworn in eleven Southern States formed a new nation and elected their own President. The South took Fort Sumter and the nation was plunged into war. At the first battle at Bull Run the Union soldiers were defeated. Criticism of the President’s leadership grew deafening. The New York Times wrote on April 25, 1861: “Wanted—Leader!” Yet—Lincoln followed his instincts and did not veer from what he felt was the right path. We know the rest of that story.

Perspective is everything. When, in the fifties, Senator Joseph McCarthy grabbed the nation’s attention, hounded hundreds, maybe more out of their job with the charge of Communism—it was a dark day for the nation. Authors, professors, journalists, movie stars and other folk were targeted and many lost their livelihoods. Some committed suicide. Most folk do not even remember the name Joseph McCarthy. He died of alcoholism and at his funeral there were less than ten people that gathered around his grave.

We have to take the long view. The media that continually rants does not help us much. Neither does the computer. Yet we must find ways to remember we have been here before. We have to keep reminding one another that there has always been a crazy element at the fringe of this country.

Poet Wendell Berry offers me some good advice when everything seems out of sorts. Maybe he can help you, too.

“Leave your windows and go out, people of the world,
go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods
and along the streams. Go together, go alone.
Say no to the Lords of War which is Money
which is Fire. Say no by saying yes
to the air, to the earth, to the trees,
yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds
and the animals and every living thing, yes
To the small houses, yes to the children. Yes.”

  --Wendell Berry , Given