Song . . .
Outside new windows a robin sings the morning, irregular notes wandering up, then down, then up, then down. Familiar as soil and skin, it sounds like home out there. But home I left behind long ago, back at the beginnings roads that long I've wandered: up, then down, then up, then down. The morning I recognize, but of the world outside these new windows I'm not so sure.
Been here only a week; it ain't home yet. Another new encampment under an open western sky. Another set of walls to turn the wind, another patch of ground for hands and tools to tend, another set of seasons to circle 'round. To those things, I can adapt. These new people, though; I wonder. All I know of them so far is what's spoken by stickers on bumpers, slogans on hats, flags on poles. These new people, I'm still wondering what it is they do, how their time gets filled, how their plans come together, whether they're working for me or against me.
The things a village needs have not changed since yesterday: stewardship and empathy, caring and honor, generosity and truth. This American experiment is certainly an impossible one—governing these millions, welcoming these refugees, caring for these unfortunates. This American experiment is too big a thing to do . . . but it's not too big a thing to try. Ours is a nation founded on democratic ideas spoken in breathless reveries by Enlightenment scholars, the great social-thinkers of 18th century France who imagined lands of liberty and opportunity and equality. They never truly thought a democracy could work (the greedy and powerful would never allow it), never thought anyone would actually try. Yet, her we are . . . the model democracy, flourishing impossibly for two and a half turbulent centuries, finally finding itself threatened by the rich and the powerful, by the soulless and the corrupt, by those who would be kings.
A population voted, a majority chose; that was their right. But it's no longer that population which governs, it's no longer that majority which rules. It is others—others bold enough to usurp political messages, others cruel enough to enforce selfish, violent solutions. They've uprooted the naive guardrails that we all agreed to drive between, so they're not easy to oppose. Our only chance is in living up to oaths that preserve our impossible system. Judges must arrive judiciously. Citizens must disobey with civility. Branches must govern independently. And journalists must shout at the top of their lungs. While we all remain free to do so . . .
Some mornings begin with pouring black coffee in the dark, blindly fueling up to face a day of unknowns. Not today. Yesterday's same sun is on the rise today—and still in the east. Tomorrow's prospects will be built by decisions made in the present tense—and not because of bumper stickers, hats, or flags. This morning's robin sings a song I know, even as he creates it anew with each note and warble and chirp.