Splintering (A sketch)

These storms came. Sometimes, even most times, they were not so severe as they used to be. But now and then the equivalent of a hundred-year storm still came raging down as it did now on her emotional landscape with little warning. Not a storm like Dorothy Gale’s, mercifully sending her into a technicolor bliss while her psyche recuperated but a storm in which she huddled, all too conscious, in the interior corners of her mind frantically and vainly scrabbling at the walls for an escape while the winds of depression pounded like fists against the shuddering window frames of her mind . The gusts strained the posts of her foundation until they screeched and splintered.

That emotional wind, whipping, now unhinged the connecting points. Less and less of her central edifice held. More and more fragments were flying off in the fray. Thoughts were lost. Chaos descended. Distraction. Mind static, jolting, popped. Popped into place. Pierced out of again. Jagged frightened twitching junkie’s paranoia. Raw nerve ends. Tweaking. Shattered. Frayed. Screaming. A siren's rasping scrape. Pealing carrion cries. Splitting. Sharp-pointed slivers. Frayed frizzled fibers and filaments. Rending wood. Pieces. Tiny pieces. Quivering.

Quivering.

Shattered.

Worn. Worn out.

And now, here again, weeks or months later, is the damage left behind. She retieves pieces, putting them back on the shelf. Remnants, old habits, scraps of familiar joy, all of these things the mortar shoring up her walls. She awaits the friends cautiously checking to see if it is safe to return, watching for sharp edges.

Family Acceptance Trumps All

We are revolted at racism and at other bigotries we witness but it’s when those bigoted views come from family members that we are so completely shocked and offended and angered. Why is that? It’s not just the offensive opinion itself that we are reacting to. Otherwise, our reaction would be just as visceral in hearing it from non-family members. And it’s not just that we tend to assume families share our views and are surprised when they do not. There is something else, an additional offense that is taken, because it comes from family.

It’s that the differences within a family pose a danger of lost family acceptance. There is not much that is more devastating than rejection by one’s family.

Some families have a great capacity to discuss differences and still maintain a cocoon of acceptance. Others require members to “shut up” to keep a semblance of unity or as a way of honoring that unity. But, in any family, if the opiner does not honor family unity and does not hold the others’ needs of family acceptance above their own need to expresses an opinion and if that opinion rejects something fundamental to the very nature and beliefs of one of the others in that family, loss of family acceptance becomes an actuality, not a mere danger.

The expressed opinion, in such cases is a rejection, whether intended or not. The resulting eruption of “How can you say that?” is not just a reaction to hatred or racism or homophobia. It has the additional layer of “How can you so blithely reject me, your sister? How can you value your opinion more than me?”

Quirk of Mind

What skew of sight must there be
To understand harmony?
What wondrous complexity
To enable clarity?

This prism, this quirk of mind
Hating chaos yearns to find
In the midst of ash and soot
Seeds emerging, taking root.

There is no edge to the flame
But in “fire” we give it name.
We give atoms tiny moons
Though but circling cloud festoons.

O, what awesome symmetry
Comprehended by man’s eye!
What fearful rule is beheld,
For the mind is so compelled.

God’s breath is but winds of chance
Seen as ordered elegance.
Recursive lines spun to make
Laws of nature in their wake.

Can you see in ash and soot
Seeds in chaos taking root?
What prism’d light you must be
To understand harmony.

We Made It!

“I made it!” That’s what she said. Tromping up my steps, trying to make her toddler’s legs take grown-up strides. Her parents, still emerging from the car, seem to be towed in her wake. Her father, my son, I’m sure doesn’t want me encouraging this rebelliousness but it is such a joy. No doubt she pestered them to death to get here. How can I help but welcome this imp with open arms and with all my heart?

I imagine she’ll be goin’ across the road in a bit to find her Pup-pup with that same damn determination. It will do her good. It will do him good. He’ll likely close that back door to the garage when he hears her comin’. What a force that child is!

Not like her dad. He had a different way of coping with the secrets in that garage. He dodged. He avoided. He can’t stand contention to this day. He suppresses any question, any discussion. “Don’t stir up trouble!” he says. “Don’t make waves!” “Don’t argue with me!” Can’t really blame him.

But this child, she pushes back. Suppressin’ her here just makes her pop up there. For my money, it’s the better way to go. I’m with you, child. We made it!

Panic of 1819, Redux

There is a nifty little book by Alan Axelrod and Charles Phillips called “What Every American Should Know About American History” (now in at least its third edition) that gives a page or two of historical facts per event. Included is a summary of the events surrounding the Panic of 1819.

Interestingly, the stated causes for the crisis were that “[t]he government incurred heavy debts during the war” which “battered the economy,” there was wild real estate speculation and there were “overextended investments in manufacturing,” which, combined with “the collapse of foreign markets for American goods,” threatened the collapse of those manufacturers. Banks failed and paper money lost value. Credit dried up with lack of confidence.

Sound familiar? Today we have a war racking up heavy debt. We hade wild speculation on housing prices or, if not wild speculation, at least wildly unrealistic expectations of ever-increasing prices. We have an auto industry that cannot adequately compete due to a collapsing global market for it products. We have overextended investment in the mortgage industry that saw its market for sub-prime loans collapse.

In 1819, to address the crisis, states started passing legislation to provide relief to debtors, legislation that was arguably unconstitutional. While our current crisis bailout also has provisions providing relief to home mortgage debtors (also possibly unconstitutional), it is likely that this relief is as much a mirage as it was in 1819. The solution in 1819 ultimately was the chartering of the Second Bank of the United States which took a hard line on existing debt payments, so much so that it was called "the Monster" and it was said that “The bank was saved but the people were ruined.” Likewise today, it seems unlikely that the Treasury can prop up the value of all the mortgage backed securities it is buying if it gives much relief to debtors.

What Kind of Liberal Are You, Anyway?

As Americans we are all liberals. We often forget that America was founded on principles to rid ourselves of tyranny of the king, the aristocracy, the despot. Our history is one of establishing protections for the individual against the state. It is still quite a liberal thing, even 232 years after the country’s inception, to have a government that is based upon the rule of a constitution rather than the rule of a strongman or a strong group. We forget that a constitution empowered only by our trust in each other to adhere to it and forged to protect the individual above all else is a celebration of the dignity and worth of the individual. This is a liberal concept.

But the Constitution is not an exaltation of unfettered individualism. If it were it would establish a true democracy and would let each individual form the associations to which chance and natural ability would lead. It would allow a market place of opinion and power where the joining of the like-minded majority would rule; the minority be damned.

Instead the Constitution established controls so that certain base-line rights of individuals would be protected even if the majority would have otherwise. The Constitution honors the individual but in two ways. It balances the individual's power with the individual's humanity. It balances of the individual’s right of association and to vote with others who are like-minded to determine the rules of the governed with the individual's humanity in which the individual possesses rights that are inalienable, even by the majority. It is a balance between freedom from the strongman and freedom from the majority.

In our current presidential election the issue of whether we have a big government or a less intrusive one comes down to where you feel this balance is achieved. Are you about individual self-determination and preserving your right to association and forming a majority on issues that matter to you? Or, are you about restraining the majority to protect rights of individuals who may be crushed by the majority rule? Are you about freedom from the tyranny of the king or are you about freedom from the tyranny of the majority?

Is the majority’s need for national security sufficient reason to curtail rights to privacy, counsel or habeas corpus? Is the right to health care an inalienable right? Must it be protected from majority rule that would (that does) subject health care to the economics of the marketplace? What about poverty? Is it an issue of individual autonomy and the marketplace or should the strongman enter to ensure the poor receive equal protection of the law? Where do we draw the line and say “this right” is not inalienable and the majority will not be held hostage to protecting it above the general interest?