'Bred Crumbs

Turning the Downward Arrow Forward

When I left home this morning, after reading of the London attacks, one of the first faces I saw was that of a very young girl, standing at the bus stop with her family. The sight brought a smile, but then I imagined (darkly, as is my custom, especially in this century) the world she's facing as she grows up. Problem piling upon massive problem, being met with indifference, or recklessness, or exploitation.

This, three days after the Fourth of July. Used to be that Independence Day was one of the two holidays that still held their meaning for me, along with Thanksgiving. This year, I didn't really think about the Fourth on the Fourth. I couldn't bear to. It would have depressed me. Rather than a celebration, America's birthday now feels like a vigil at the bedside of someone slowly dying, becoming demented. Happy Birthday, America. We miss you.

Which is a gross exaggeration, of course, a fearful magnification of the downward arrow my mind sees lately for the nation, the world. And then I realize: hasn't every generation felt this hell-in-a-handbasket way? And did their dread prove warranted? Are things worse? Certainly, there is much real, appalling violence, much harm, much death. But there always has been. And there are also more people, more opportunity, more wonder, more life.

It's not that there aren't threats, and not just from the atrocities of man. I live, by choice, in a city at the particular mercy of the Earth, which tries to tear it down every several decades. But it is also a city with more true liberty than anywhere else in America. It is a certainly not a utopia: there are the crowds, the cost, the omnipresent homelessness.

But there is far more good than bad.

And that truth must extend outward. Even when the balances – of power, of money, of elections, of damage – seem to say the opposite, there is still more good than bad. The challenge is to see the good, to increase it, and to believe in it. To temper concern with perspective. To counter problems with logical, reasonable action. To quell worry with calm. To defy death with life.

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