The State of Our Disunion

I'll admit, I'm forced to plead total ignorance regarding a matter of burning concern to many Americans today (even as certain Americans reading me are free to be appalled at the ignorance and presumption of what follows anyway, in my last four paragraphs).

What I'm at a complete loss to determine, of course, is the Larger Meaning of Mr Trump: how far is he merely a symptom of our present national sickness, or how far might he be even a small - infinitesimal? - part of a (no doubt deeply hidden and paradoxical) remedy. A medicine known in its fullest operations only to God. At all events, and regardless of what our president may be capable of, God would hardly be God if we found Him unable to write straight with even our crookedest lines.

Anyhow, for whatever it's worth my own hunch is simply this: We're never going to get better, much less get well, until Something Else happens. Something that may have next to nothing to do with who is, or becomes, president. For me the key question concerns any Nation itself, and in particular what about itself it is proudest of: therein, I suspect, lies its greatest doing or undoing. So long as America continues to take her greatest pride in those things for the success of which she depends most on herself - and least on God - she will only get worse. My point is that any run-of-the-mill Man-centered nation, any humanly-driven-to-distraction country can brood until the end of time on what makes it "exceptional": what makes it superior to other countries - or more genuinely utopian, or visionary, or enlightened. Or closer to Heaven. Any supposed advantage we have, provided we inflate ourselves enough with it, can be swollen far beyond recognition of its original basis in fact - swollen to the point, indeed, where it ceases to be much of an advantage at all. Like our vaunted much greater current entrepreneurialism, for instance. It's an unending marvel what especially we smart humans can convince ourselves of. Nor is it clear by any means - unlike, say, with angels - that any permanent hierarchy of worth or value exists, or even can exist, among nations, civilizations, etc. But rather it is, I suspect, more for what they have in common that all sensible countries will always be keenly alert to the stillest, smallest Divine whisper. While reserving a healthy skepticism for even the best of our human thunders, fires and earthquakes.

Again, in common. Because every country (companies seem to be a different story altogether), whatever else it may have or lack, has for itself
(1) a territory however small, and
(2) a people however stupid
 - and either way, things way too complex and unpredictable ever to be left to any mere human ingenuity. That is why any sensible country is always going to love and cherish its people* and its territory far more than it could ever love any Idea or Image it has made of itself, no matter how messianic or salvific. Just think how often it is, even in everyday life, that discerning the real, God-discerned good - the real need - of any human creature involves charting a winding, elusive course between two sometimes intensely idealistic, and so by implication inhuman, extremes. And now consider whether that's any less true - or more? - of those territorial collections of human creatures we call countries, regions, states, counties, etc. (And either way, think about it: Is it really after all an Idea or an Image - say, of your wife or your kids - that you love? And what happens when they fail to conform - or even coincide - with it???)

* I mean seriously, how else are they going to get any smarter? Oh that's right - through unremitting competition with each other, and by being properly terrorized by the right boss. Never mind.

In any case I think it comes as no surprise when, in matters of national policy - whether domestic or foreign - questions are so often anything but simple. And so rarely favor simple, clear-cut, extreme solutions. The problem is seldom merely whether or not to maintain a presence or withdraw; to stand tall or stand down; to buttress or scale back an alliance or coalition. (And least of all when canvassing for partners in a coalition to restrain - not one but two? - brilliant, yet often brutal and clumsy giants: China and America).

Rather, whenever we consider the good of a place and of its people, the questions normally become in a sense both more modest and more urgent. Not how great we are, and how we ought to conduct ourselves accordingly - or even how much greater we're supposed to become - but rather, what is to become of us? That last being usually, at least in my experience, the point where real Deity - as distinct from the gods we've invented - comes into the picture. You may be unconvinced. But now think about your own life. When you sit down to reflect on how much better you are than other people - how much more exceptional, accomplished, etc  - you don't usually need much help from God, do you? Normally one's own resources are more than adequate for the job. It is only as we think about what we need - about where, and who, we were before we were born, and where we're going to be after we die - that we begin to sense the need for God, even slowly, to enter into every part of us, as water creeps into the hollowest* cave.

*But also the loveliest, by virtue of the water's action?

Most often, then - and dare I suggest, not just with individuals but even the greatest (most over-extended?) nations - it's a matter of heedfulness: i.e., of listening, observing and fine-tuning; of degrees, balances, proportions. In sum, of the kinds of shades and nuances that, even for politicians, rarely if ever define themselves with any clarity, except through quietude and prayer.

And so I keep coming back to what for me seems more and more the real crux - or Cross - of our current impasse: Not how big or small of an idiot Mr Trump is - or any of his opponents, for that matter! - but what kind of ultimate humility we're all going to need, how much of it, and how soon, in order to stave off real humiliation.

(Edited.)