ANNEALING AND HEALING

  Live and learn. Never too old for that, even in senior years or times of less than perfect health. Adventure and curiosity are alive and well. Today I learned a new word. Annealing. Not healing, but annealing, a term used by blacksmiths re a process wherein metal of shall we say swords, is allowed to cool down slowly, avoiding the brittleness and a tendency to shatter if tempered, cooling too quickly.

Why the heck am I talking about blacksmiths and swords? Because, like it or not, it is comparable to the metal and the mettle of our country. These, as others, far wiser than I, have said, are the times that try men's souls. We have become a nation of tempering, bursts of anger and accusations, turning on a dime, society fragmenting in front of us, families and friends refusing to speak , to discourse with each other. Americans are now eager to rant in the streets, even kill fellow Americans. Why? For wearing/not wearing a mask? For vaccinating or not? True, but it goes a whole lot deeper than that.

We have foresworn the healing process of annealing. We cannot go slow anymore, having turned the temperature up beyond bearing, allowing no forbearance, no time, for the slow, but stronger process of annealing, slow cooking, a return to a melded society that once was America. We have indeed thrown out the baby with the bathwater and that baby is endangered beyond anything that we had ever thought possible. Yet there it is. Here it is.

"My drops of tears I'll turn to sparks of fire." So wrote Shakespeare in Henry VIII. Yet another time in history when burning societal fevers forced a division on England such that it did not recover for years, years of blood, warfare, treason and hate. Frankly, that hate still exists in some countries. Hate has a long life.

Long suspected, long remarked and discussed, the proof is now available. The former President of this country, Trump, committed treason, conspiring openly with fellow conspirators to overthrow, to invalidate the election held in this country. To become the First Dictator, to spurn our history, our sacred documents, our burning role in history, our place among the nations. Even more striking, is that as stated Friday night, these meetings are ongoing. A "shadow cabinet" meets with the traitor, that modern day Benedict Arnold, that continues to plan, to subvert, deny all truths, push its dangerous lies, all to take back this country, to take it away from us. To place this country yet again into a boiling pot of hatred such that we will never overcome. In my mind I see a future America soon enough as a gray reflection of the gray America of The Handmaid's Tale, in The Man in the High Castle. No joy in Mudville at any time, ever again.

Perhaps even worse, is to think, to know, to take in, to assimilate into one's shocked mind, that there were, there are, so many of our supposed national leaders eager to go along. Actively. Knowingly. To know how many are dyed in the wool Fascists. Who are so the antithesis of what this country stands for that it makes one gasp in shock. How have they reached such heights, wield such influence and power? Pose a true, deep, and present existential threat to this country?

Pelosi says, rightly so, about McCarthy that "He's such a moron." True, but it is worse than that. Jim Johnson trips over his own tongue trying to cover his complicity in the plotting. Ron Johnson states that COVID is not serious enough, is comparable to the common cold. I gather over 613,000 dead are simply not much in his twisted mind, even as the toll rises exponentially once again. 

Are we facing the Sixth Extinction - us? Are we hastening it? Worse, do we deserve it for all our errors, on purpose or by accident, by omission or commission? Need we conduct an immediate rethinking of our values and the highway we have seemingly chosen? Is it too late? 

Can we turn back from the dangerous tempering, the false promise it extends, turn to annealing, the slower, yet surer, stronger process? Is there time? I believe so if we all open our hearts and minds, accept the truths we need to hear, start trusting each other, desert the paranoid behavior inspired by false leaders and have loyalty to our country, not a cult figure.

George Carlin once put it this simply.

"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." If only.