Beyond this Present Devastation

Anyone who doubts our utter dependence upon nature’s graces or our frightening vulnerability in the face of nature’s power is not paying attention. We can design and build the very best we know how, and still be wiped out. A storm, a fire, an earthquake, a hurtling asteroid; a microbe, a parasite, a cell gone awry.

I am not suggesting at all that we must not do our best to defend ourselves against such threats, or to work to overcome them. To do otherwise would be to deny our nature as living organisms.

But we also must realize that everything we do is related to everything else, and that what promises security from one kind of threat may heighten the dangers posed by other threats. Then we must not let our fear of negative consequences, known or unknown, keep us from doing anything at all.

So we move forward, step by step, thoughtfully and fearlessly casting what light we do have into the shadows around us as we try to find the best path into the future. It does us no good to deny either the light we carry or the darkness around us, to ignore what helps us see something and what keeps us from seeing anything.

As I write this I am thinking about what I know about science and technology. They are neither our saviors nor our servants, but tools that will be only as good as the use we make of them. Hammers can build and they can destroy. It depends on what we decide to do with them.

In the aftermath of the current spate of terrible natural disasters, many of them focused on our home continent, we will not move forward without sound science and reliable technology. We must not allow preconceived notions, even those born of religious faith or political convictions, to blind us to what we can perceive, measure, understand, share, and do using our best intellects.

To do any otherwise is to deny the intellects that, I believe, God has given us. Trusting this gift, I am both humbled and empowered.

Fiddlin' Around

President Donald Trump has given new meaning to the old notion of “fiddling while Rome burns.” His administration’s announcement yesterday about rescinding DACA (a message delivered by his beloved Attorney General) was a cynical and calculating pandering to the worst in American society.

I understand why it would be better for DACA to be legislated. But it hasn’t been, and who’d bet on it ever becoming law? The victims are some 800,000 young adults living within our borders who probably have cleaner criminal records and are contributing more to our economy and society than any random sampling of 800,000 native-born Americans. They’ve all been checked out in ways I’ve never been. Now their future is in the hands of a dysfunctional Congress. How is that just?

Ohio’s Republican Senator, Rob Portman, likes to present himself as a compassionate human being. After all, he is against human trafficking and the opioid epidemic, and backs legislative efforts to combat both. But what kind of opposition does he face on those issues? I haven’t heard of any demonstrations in favor of human trafficking and drug addiction. But when it comes to DACA, he hides behind “the law” and “the constitution.” I take neither lightly, but there are situations when the right thing to do does not neatly fit into legalistic categories. This is one of those situations.

I do not know if DACA would stand up in court. Maybe President Trump should have let the Attorneys General who threatened to take him to court if he didn’t rescind it have at it. His own Justice Department, of course, would have sided with them, so they’d probably win. But he’d have shown himself as a man of compassion. Instead we see, again, the “realDonaldTrump.”

On the day of the President/Attorney General’s announcement, the other news was of hurricane-caused destruction and suffering in Texas and Louisiana; of an even larger storm bearing down on small islands and no doubt the U.S. mainland; of N. Korea and the U.S. brandishing nuclear weapons at each other; of tens of thousands of acres of the North American continent being incinerated; and of a hundred other tragedies. Nevertheless, they found time to appeal to his “base” and put the future of 800,000 human beings in doubt.

Good performance, Mr. Trump . . . your fiddling while the republic burns.