The urge to unity is at the heart of all the virtue capital of humanity. (While venture capital may build a city’s walls, virtue capital – the treasures of developed human capacity, will sustain them; and when lost, a civilization will rot to ruin like dead men’s bones and join the roster of once upon a time stories, excavated from the sands of time, to tell future generations.)
That urge – the urge to forge a we-ness, is at the center of all man’s creative capacities and inform his better angels. It is the self same fire at the level of marriage and the family, and every other meaningful merger – community, nation, region – the enterprise of uniting diverse elements of human personality is the very genius of life. The individual enterprise, while meaningful and necessary has certainly been the impulse we most wrestle with for the sake of peace.
The kernel of American power and genius is contained in the words – “We the people”. All she has become and achieved is fed and sustained by that central idea. When that idea no longer is understood, recognized and honored, she will fade into certain oblivion and leave others to eulogize her, or lament her. or revile her. The dead have little control over how their story is told. And America, like all great nations. has incited mixed passions around the world. Her flag a symbol of freedom and fear, an object cherished and burnt, sometimes by the same people turning quickly from one to the other.
Her past and present glory notwithstanding, her princes and prophets will lose both vision and courage the day ‘we the people’ no longer resonates the American soul.
Courage does not close its eyes. The ostrich that buries its head in the sand exposes its behind. Lindsay Graham’s suggestion to ignore the impeachment proceedings of President Trump in indefensible. One but has to see the opening statements of both Schiff and Nunes to be certain that America’s brightest and best with her blighted and basest have been gathered.
Trump may be on trial, but that is only the sideshow. What is really being tried is the soul of America. Sure it will be personalized and party-fied, but only because America, and every people group must harmonize differences to peacefully and creatively coexist. The thinking that this is about who wins and who loses, or who is right and vindicated and who is wrong and condemned is tangential at best.
All who choose to watch the spectacle will understand what is at stake is much greater, the determination or termination of ‘we the people’. Trump understands more than most do – if you believe in an idea totally, you can realize it.
But the reverse is also true. You discard the idea most central to your being, your grave march begins.
YeKengalé 