Truth shared

Sy Safransky is the founder and editor emeritus of The Sun, which publishes essays, stories, poems, etc., by current writers. The October, 2024 issue carries an essay he wrote in 1986, “Enemies of Freedom.” In it, Safransky recalls an incident from years earlier when the “liberal arts college dedicated to the habits of freedom” he attended banned a Communist from speaking on campus. Here us a paragraph in which he reflects not he meaning of freedom. I especially like the John Adams quote with which he concludes.

“I began to consider more keenly the perils of limiting dissent in a democracy, of skimping on freedom as if there where only so much to go around. The real patriots, it seemed to me, weren’t those who insisted that truth, their truth, had to be defended at any cost—or who suggested, with a wink at history, that our rights would best be protected by stripping us of a few. Democracy asks for a sturdier faith, asks us to trust that in the free discussion of ideas, truth will more often than not win out. What a dangerous notion, to those who pride above all else security and a predictable tomorrow. It is, after all, as risky as love! Yet, miraculously, among people of different backgrounds and temperaments, different races and religions—people as different as you and I—the spirit of truth somehow prevails. Not my truth or your truth, but something shared, an understanding among equals, at once mystical and practical, that allows us to live together. Like a friendship or a marriage, democracy depends on communication and trust; yes, we know the risks. ‘Virtue,’ as John Adams observed, ‘is not always amiable.’ If we’re free to love, we’re free to hate—free to be Communists and Nazis and Democrats and Republicans and every kind of fool. Adams also wisely advised, ‘There’s a danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with the power to endanger the public liberty.’”

In the evening we shall be examined on love, by Thomas Centolella

In the evening, we shall be examined on love.

And it won’t be multiple choice,

though some of us would prefer it that way.

Neither will be it be essay, which tempts us to run on

when we should be sticking to the point, if not together.

In the evening there will be implications

our fear will turn to complications. No cheating,

we’ll be told, and we’ll try to figure the cost of being true

to ourselves. In the evening, when the sky has turned

that certain blue, blue of exam books, blue of no more

daily evasions, we shall climb the hill as the light empties

and park our tired bodies on a bench above the city

and try to fill in the blanks. And we won’t be tested

like defendants on trial, cross-examined

till one of us breaks down, guilty as charged. No,

in the evening, after the day has refused to testify,

we shall be examined on Love, like students

who don’t recall signing up for the course

and now must take their orals, forced to speak for once

from the heart and not off the top of their heads.

And when the evening is over and it’s late,

the student body asleep, even the great teachers

retired for the night, we shall stay up

and run back over the questions, each in our own way:

what’s true, what’s false, what unknown quantity

will balance the equation, what it would mean many years from now

to look back and know

We did not fail.

The title/first line of this poem by American poet Thomas Centolella is a quote from late-16th-century mystic John of the Cross. It speaks to me today.

In the need of prayer...

I am grateful for all the day-after-the-election postings by Facebook friends offering hope and encouragement. I am striving to remember our Christian faith that, when all is complete, joy will transcend anger, love will overcome fear, community will replace division, and life will defeat death. I’ve preached those things, and I trust them.

But I also fear that we who do believe such positive things are entering a period of protracted struggle against the inhumane “principalities and powers of this present age.” I hope I am up to the challenges of our times.

Meantime, Thursday I will have surgery to remove what is, I hope, a benign mass on my left parotid (salivary) gland. It unsettles me to think about the surgeon making an incision just in front of my left ear lobe down to my neck, but that is what must happen to take care of this thing.

I will be asleep, of course. I trust I will wake up from my surgery, ready to do what I can do to heal.

We who are disappointed in how many of our fellow Americans voted yesterday may need to rest up to prepare for what’s ahead. To let others care for us the way our posts are caring for one another, so we can be strengthened to do whatever we can do to get us well.

I hope and pray our nation will wake up to the power of compassion and justice, and exercise them toward full health. And, I ask you to direct your good thoughts and/or prayers my way tomorrow as well. Thanks.

Competing yard signs; competing visions for our future

 

There’s a yard sign nearby that reads, “Trump…the Revenge Tour.” It suggests that a second Trump administration would be about visiting revenge on his enemies, real or imagined.

Lest we think that sign sounds more extreme that it really means, consider that last week Mr. Trump suggested that Liz Cheney belongs in front of a firing squad. His increasingly spiteful rhetoric tells us what would be on his mind if he moves back into the Oval Office.

Kamala Harris’s rhetoric makes it clear that governing our nation will be on her mind as our president. Many do not like her or her specific policies, but no one cannot deny the fact that she has never made so direct an attack on the very foundations of our republic as Mr. Trump and his allies are making over and over again.

Another nearby yard sign reads, “Harris for President…obviously.” The choice tomorrow is obvious to all who hold our country and its future dear.

Questions as November 7 approaches

 

Elon Musk warns that it’s going to hurt to get our nation’s financial house in order, doing it the way he wants to do it. I can sort of understand that, but I cannot accept it if more hurt is imposed on people who are hurting already, or on people just a paycheck or two away from hurting. And will his plan hurt the middle class, whose votes everyone wants? We deserve to know. Plus, I will not accept it if people in the top 1 or 2% are not also hurt—and I mean hurt, not just inconvenienced—by it. How will Mr. Musks plan hurt Mr. Musk? Tell me that, and I might be more interested in what he has to say.

The Haslam family has made billions off its chain of truck stops, enough to buy the Cleveland Browns several years ago. They have given over $6 million in the past couple of years to mostly conservative, Republican causes and candidates. At the same time, they are looking for a billion or two of tax money to build a new stadium for their Browns. Let me get this straight: they are looking for tax money from politicians who are for lower taxes and fiscal conservatism in order to subsidize their own enterprise?

One weather-caused disaster does not prove the entire climate is changing, but when such disasters start to add up, one on top of another, it may occur to those who are paying attention that something is not right. But adding up is what is happening…powerful storms, extended droughts, record high temperatures, nearly snowless Cleveland winters…and everyone knows it. It’s exactly what climate scientists have told us would happen. They have told us why it is happening, too. Why on earth would we even come close to electing a government that runs on climate change denial?

An essay on political name-calling

 

This morning's news is filled with self-righteous charges of name-calling flying back and forth between people who seem to enjoy name-calling. Whatever really was said, or was intended to be said, if it sounds even a little bit like name-calling, the other side (both sides) is on it with fury: "How dare you...!" 

 "The pot calls the kettle black," and the kettle responds in kind.

It's exhausting and demeaning, this style of politics. It won't do any good for me to call for a stop to it. I'd like to think we are better than this, but we aren't. Calling our adversary hurtful names just feels too good to abandon the practice.

My unplanned response to Donald Trump's rally yesterday

I just read about Mr. Trump's Madison Square Garden rally yesterday, and think the following, which I drafted last night, is as good a response to it as any. Maybe if some who spoke there had been in church with me yesterday, they'd have changed their tune...one can always hope!

We heard a great sermon yesterday morning about the ingathering God of the Christian scriptures. About the God who would rather gather us into one than scatter us into many. About the God who calls all people to be more gatherers than scatterers, who rejoices when the lost come home and the whole family celebrates with them. (I've moved beyond the sermon itself, but I was inspired.)

Leaders who want to bring people together around common issues and concerns seem to me to be a reflection of the God I heard proclaimed this morning. Leaders who want to scatter us into our various tribes seem not to be. People who want to be gathered and in community seem to me to be responding to this God more truly than are people who thrive on being scattered and isolated.

We must be careful, however, not to get derailed. When Martin Luther King, Jr., was preaching reconciliation of races in the beloved community, many accused him of being divisive. But, sounding divisive in the search of being truly reconciled is often a necessary step on the way to a healed community. It is not an end in itself, but a rough spot on the way to human wholeness. King's dream was not about divisions, but about a unity beyond all of our divisions. Dare our land still dream that dream?

Lord, show us all how to be a more faithful ingatherers of the human family, even when some accuse us of creating division. Teach us what to say and do to help create your beloved community. Amen.