America in Waiting

 

                    President Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site Indianapolis courtesy photo

    As America waits I share history and sentiment. I spent a lot of time at this wonderful historic site, serving on the board and eventually as president of the Benjamin Harrison Home board of directors. There is a connection to where we are now.

        Harrison was elected in 1888, defeating Grover Cleveland in a campaign that had its share of controversy and dispute. Harrison, who had served in the Senate, lost the popular vote by 90 thousand but won the electoral college 233 to 168. Almost 80% of eligible voters, some 11million, cast their ballots.

    Harrison was an advocate of civil rights and voting rights but America at that time was not ready. It would be another 32 years before women were extended the right to vote. Harrison spoke often in favor of African American rights. Most modern Americans know little if any of Benjamin Harrison, who's Grandfather was William Henry Harrison, the 9th President. He was also the great grandson of a name sake who signed the Declaration of Independence. Dispute over tariffs cost him his re-election bid, as he was defeated by Cleveland, the man he beat four years earlier. His one term is a rich tapestry of an emerging American nation on the cusp of the 20th Century.

    Watching recent campaigns painfully serves to inform how poorly educated we Americans are about our history. The last 4 years has been a catalogue of ignorance and lies. If we knew our history, perhaps we'd be better citizens. 

    The 2020 campaign will be studied as an oddity. There will be volumes to come but already Tom Friedman writes the US is the loser in this election.

    "We have just experienced four year of the most divisive and dishonest presidency in American history, which attacked the twin pillars of our democracy-truth and trust." Friedman wrote and I agree.

    My Irish friend Jack, a devotee of US history and culture, wrote to me on election day with a powerful assessment I share here.

    This could be a day of days or the end of days.

I expect Joe Biden to be elected with a significant majority in the Electoral College and a big majority in the popular vote.

However, if Trump is re-elected the American people will not be able to claim that they did not know what 4 more years of Trump will entail, even if the Democrats take the Senate. They will have chosen corruption, moral bankruptcy, division, lies, lies and more lies. The US will be shown to no longer be a democracy. It will be a plutocracy, put in place by the Supreme Court (Citizens United), enabled by the Supreme Court (the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act) and by a once great political party, the party of Lincoln; a bandit country in which people armed with weapons capable of firing 60 rounds a minute can invade a state capitol without hindrance or consequence (Supreme Court on 2nd amendment; a justice system which is getting more and more unjust; a country in which civil rights are in retreat; a country which is a pariah in the world; a country which is reaping the harvest of a criminal lack of investment in public education and no investment in public health (socialism!); a country in which the First Amendment right to protest will be suppressed by troups, whether federal, National Guard, ICE or other; a country where the media have been captured by the plutocracy (Murdoch/Fox 'News', spreading like a malevolent virus across the nation, shutting down local newspapers, radio and television); a country where JFK's 'Ask not what your country can do for you...' would be laughed at... I could go on. We all could. The list is endless and the 'appalling vista' (Lord Denning in Bermingham 6 appeal) would become a rooted reality in a once great country, a country to which the free world (does it exist anymore?) looked for leadership.

It is staggering that it has come to this but, as many have pointed out, this did not start with Trump, it has been many years in the making.

Let's pray that Biden's election will be the first step in the re-building of the USA, a re-building that will take generations, a re-buildng that so many good, decent Americans of all political hues deserve.

    It is truth and logic. I am embarrassed at America's decline in the eyes of the world. I am embarrassed by Trump, his destruction of the Republican party, and those who support him and condone his attack on truth and trust. His gains for his partisans are not worth the destruction he has rendered.

   It troubles me this nation has descended where millions can condone unAmerican and boorish behavior by a man who is ultimately a Russian stooge playing a starring role in sowing division, discord and eroding our confidence and trust in who we are. He did it for his own aggrandizement. It is a fact that we cannot dismiss. And as we pick through the next four years and beyond, it is a recent history we must account for. He fueled it for gain and greed and we are a divided people.

    There is work to do, rebuilding the United States, despite ourselves. We hope the days of the divider, working only for his base, are over. We need a uniter, a healer, a president for all Americans and a leader for the world. 

    For the time being, stay positive. Catch up on your sleep.

       Thanks to Bruce, the editor.

       See you down the trail.

CHANGE-REAL AND IMAGINARY

CHANGE IS A LAW OF LIFE*

     Some change is more difficult to abide. The change to Cambria's rare Monterey Pine forest is heart breaking and so too is big change in a little church.

   Slopes of the Santa Lucia Mountains, hill sides and canyons display the unmistakable damage, wrought by drought, disease and management practices. It is sad to see though a reminder of the tenuous grasp of life and health.

AN IMAGINARY TALE OF 

NOT SO IMAGINARY CHANGE

     Imagine a small town rich with diversity of intellect, life experience and birthright. Picture a charming little church where people of all sorts gather in friendship. This is a cast of actors who represent a cross section of ideas, politics, influence, economic profiles, levels of education and attitudes. 

      See this extended family stand by each other in good times and bad. They celebrate together and they comfort each other as they mourn. They know they have their differences, in the secular world, even in theology, but it is their unity and family which holds them together, so they may grow as people and believers. And they do.

      Then a Pastor tells them a danger is lurking. It is the danger of homosexuality and forces in the larger church and world who advocate for equality and full human dignity. But  gay and lesbian people are sinners he says and the church should take a stand. 

       A division shakes the happy family. Some protest that all people are God's children, made in God's image. Others act as sheriffs "enforcing" the Bible. Whispering begins. Distortions are spread. Friendships unravel. Couples quarrel. The men who wrote the Bible are on the most quoted list. Others say look to what Jesus said and did. The Bible becomes a tool of verbal warfare. People are sickened, sad, angry. There is no joy in the once happy little church. Some depart. Others warrior on, convinced they must take what is left of the little church to a new order where gays and lesbians absolutely will not be permitted to be a preacher.

        One group says all humans deserve dignity to teach and preach and be regarded as fully human and equal. They say it is good to have a diversity of view and to discuss and debate even our deepest beliefs. Another group says no, those are progressive ideas, we are meant to be bound by the authority of the word.  Which word, the others ask, which interpretation, which translation? The words of Paul and other men or the words of Jesus? And so it goes.

        This imaginary little church learns about change.

       

       Droughts of spirit and love, disease of anger, fear and management practices must also affect imaginary little churches.

       Change is hard. Sometimes imagination can help. 

*John F. Kennedy is credited with the quotation. The complete sentence is "Change is a law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

    

     See you down the trail.

MEDITATION ON BUDDY MILES, JIMI HENDRIX AND DAVID BOWIE

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

     The great Buddy Miles wrote it first "My mind is going through them changes..." Hendrix did his version.  David Bowie created his own anthem to change with the lingering chorus, 
         Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes-Turn and face the Stranger
           Ch-Ch Changes-Time may change me...
            Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes-Turn and face the Stranger"
       The lyrics of both have been the score as I've settled into a rumination. Still thinking and haven't achieved a great cosmic break through. This I know, some of us handle change better than others. 
       Chaotic change is rampant in the middle east. The climate is changing. The efficacy of American government has changed so drastically in the life time of boomers as to beget a desire for revolutionary change. The economic climate has changed so fundamentally the middle class is disappearing, the poor are growing and the richest become more exclusive and insulated. Change often seeds even greater upheaval. Bigger changes are coming.
       Not all change is bad. Nor is it cataclysmic. But doing it, changing, adapting, learning new ways, even accepting it seems a mission impossible for some. I was the architect of a massive change in a large media company.  It was needed and it paid off positively in all ways, but oh boy was it difficult to manage the change.  Time and time again I heard myself saying, "some people simply cannot abide change."
      Some changes we can temper, manage, even attempt to direct-cultural, ethical, political, even environmental. If we don't, then forces beyond our control will be in control.
      We need to be proactive, or we will be pounded. 
      You can't run from it, you can't hide from it, you can't ignore it.  As a significant chunk of the population, the boomers, reach the approach to our dotage, we must live open to change, in all ways. There is never a path back.
The force of life is forward. We are curious, experimental and searching. We should harness those drives for positive change. Humans are destined to seek and offer greater individual dignity and liberty even when forces conspire against it. Repression sparks liberation.
      We tend to think of things only on a human scale.  This blue sphere, and the star nations in which it rides have yet another scale of change. We need to embrace the reality of a planetary awareness.
        Ch-Ch-Changes-Turn and face the stranger. 
        We are constantly a work in progress. Stay tuned. Heaven only knows where this thought train is bound!?

Training the Trellis

     After about year, it is time to introduce our front gate, complete with vine.

   It has taken a while to get that Cambria look.  Here's the proof.

Now the mission will be an occasional trim.

 See you down the trail.