Now is the time to look for moral courage not in others, but in yourself
American history is full of examples of how people with moral courage shaped reality for the better. It's the legacy of Valley Forge and Gettysburg. Of the New Deal and the March on Washington.
The unimagined barbarism of Hamas overwhelmed even our most jaded capacity for horror. Years reporting on anger and outrage have left us numb to news. Many no longer pay attention to the brutal Ukraine. Most never noticed the ongoing violence and cruelty in places like Myanmar and the Sahel. It is almost as if we are asleep. This week, Hamas interrupted that sleep with the terrifying nightmare of a failed humanity.
Our world is weighed down by grief.
Each of us, living with shades drawn so low it is hard to remember that there really is beauty in the world. And so, a choosing time is upon us.
Today is the day to look in the mirror and to decide that you will have the moral courage to be bigger than your grief. There is no running away. You must decide.
Of course, the news hurts. And it is full of dread because you know that terrible consequences are set in motion. And it stings more sharply, because if we are honest, there were voices warning us, voices we refused to hear.
The pain is so present. But so is your choice. It is not a difficult choice, but it does take a particular kind of courage.
I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
That is not naïve. That is Anne Frank. She died in the holocaust, but her words inspired a torn world to heal.
Here in the United States, our great democratic nation has no national legislature for the first time in our history. We are unable to properly respond to the crises around the globe or even the one at our own border.
What kind of decision is it that House Republicans have made, and made repeatedly? They have decided that their own leadership fight is more important than everything else going on in the world right now. They have decided, every one of them, that it is better to argue among themselves and let everything collapse than ever work with Democrats. It is an unprincipled and a selfish cowardice.
You do not have to be religious to find wisdom in ancient texts. Consider this from the Bible, in the Book of Kings,
a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.
Think of the stentorious voices on FOX as the wind that tears and breaks. Think of the lies and the conspiracies theories as earthquakes and fires. Then find your own voice. It will be truer than all the rest.
No matter how it seems right now, American history is full of examples of how people with moral courage shaped reality for the better. This is the legacy of Valley Forge and Gettysburg. It is the legacy of the New Deal and the March on Washington.
It is time to decide. Choose to lift up our democracy no matter how loud the hateful voices roar. The whole world will be better for it.