Vast Winter Sky – Photo: L.Weikel
Beauty and Grace
Beauty and grace. Remember those two words? They jumped off the page of The Ocean Oracle’s lwb (little white book) that accompanies the deck when I looked up the message conveyed by the Resilience card that appeared yesterday. I shuffled the deck and shuffled again, all the while keeping the Senate trial foremost in my mind – asking for guidance for us all.
And as we know, ‘Sea Heather – Resilience’ was the card that appeared as our watchword.
To be honest, I could easily see how we as a people will need to be resilient in the face of the absurdity we’re going to be asked to accept as legitimate legal argument. Indeed, with respect to our republic as a whole, this definition of resilience from Dictionary.com sets the bar:
“3. the ability of a system or organization to respond to or recover readily from a crisis, disruptive process, etc.”
We’re being asked to respond to and recover readily from an insurrection incited by our own president in a desperate bid to retain power by use of mob violence; an insurrection waged upon our very system of government unlike anything since the Civil War itself.
It’s obvious how our resilience as a nation is being tested.
But Beauty and Grace?
Which brings me back to the sentence that haunted the edges of my mind since I wrote my post last night. “Let your beauty and grace shine through in even the most extreme environments.”
I had a feeling I knew where that beauty and grace might shine through. They are not words that would readily leap to mind in a Senate trial based upon an insurrection in which seven people have lost their lives and hundreds have sustained injuries – many horrific.
But there it was. Beauty and grace. The initial closing argument of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D – Maryland), the lead Impeachment Manager of the House of Representatives, on the simple question of the Constitutionality of the Senate hearing this case, exemplified the essence of these two words. His belief in the resilience of our form of government, his obvious and heartfelt love for our nation and his belief in the principles and integrity upon which it was founded couldn’t have been more eloquently stated.
Beauty and grace. Resilience personified.
And yet? Forty four Senators voted as if they had not listened to a single word.
If accountability is what we require for our nation to sustain its resilience, my heart is hurting this night. Our future is in the balance.
(T-290)