Thursday, January 28, 2021

Essays for my children: A plea for peace

The decades of fermenting suspicion, isolation, mistrust, and division - by media and political organizations alike - have boiled over, manifesting these rifts into physical violence on the streets of our communities and in the halls of our uniquely American institutions.   

 

At this pivotal juncture in our Union’s history, when it would be easy to drown ourselves in the confluence of political extremism, social outrage, and cancel culturalism, we must afford our futures a moment of contemplation. We must realize the severity in the America we have become.  We must choose whether we, as individual citizens of this Grand Republic, truly desire our Constitutional miracle to fall into oblivion, or instead rise to the potential forged by the generations who have strived  to deliver us this Promised Land.

 

We can no longer allow ourselves to look into the faces of our compatriots and see only enemies undeserving of our respect or dignity. We must channel our passion to act into an aspiration to listen, while sharing the vigilance in the common defense of the rights and freedoms that so many peoples were once denied. We must see each other for the ties that bind us in fellowship, and in the shared visions for prosperityWe must once more rekindle the patriotic love for a Country that still represents the last best hope for all humanity.

 

I have journeyed in many political circles and in each have enjoyed the company of outstanding personalities whose contributions to America’s greatness were simple, yet immeasurably affirming.  In bearing witness to their efforts it is my hope that though our political views may vary sharply, we will not continue to wield our resentment as a bludgeon.  Rather, I hope we can withdraw from behind our partisan barriers and converse with one another again, speaking the words gifted to us from a common heritage of historic optimism.

 

250 years ago, with a muddle of problems and an intercedence of providence, the people of the United States strove to transform this Country from a collection of ARE to a Nation of IS.  Now once more, demonstrating our resolve and our faith that we can conquer any challenge together, we can fulfill the promise of Liberty’s grace first realized on that July summer’s day.


Wil Levins


January 2021