Two weeks and counting

It's been two weeks now, are we over it? Hell no, but we're getting there, and I don't mean the prescribed "healing" is happening. The initial wailing and gnashing of teeth have given way to finding ways to do things differently, which in turn start to narrow down fairly quickly. Work and family and other everyday obligations have a way of dousing ideas of turning over a new leaf, picketing the statehouse, moving to Halifax, tattooing the Bill of Rights to my chest.

The "liberation" of Fallujah, timed conveniently on the heels of the slim victory by the presidential incumbent (what does that mean? ME fr. L "to lie down on"; akin to cubare, "to lie"; hmmm) casts a grim shadow on the whole process. I choose to think of this as NOT an apocalyptic moment in U.S. history or in my life, and I/we will deal with it. Which is easier while sitting in a warm, dry room eating a bowl of pasta and not fearing for my life at the moment.

It reminds me of an argument I had with a friend of a friend at a party in Indianapolis in 1976. Nice enough guy, he was working on a doctorate in political science; his wife worked at a bank; we were talking about ultimates - always dangerous ground - and he contended that EVERYTHING comes down to politics. I had recently started studying yoga and tried to play the pluralist, contending that for a lot of people spiritual matters override politics. He wasn't buying it.

I still believe what I argued seven elections ago. To some it's the economy, stupid, and to others it's the Bible, stupid, and so on. But it's easier to believe it in my privileged, Midwestern, employed state than it would be in Fallujah or Darfur or Hebron, I'm guessing. I never saw that guy again, don't know if he finished that doctorate, if he and his banker wife are still together, or exactly how each of us will cope with the present situation. How does one deal with an authoritarian takeover? Maybe the First Amendment tattoo after all.