The wisdom of the trees

I went for a walk in the woods yesterday, and thought deeply. Everywhere there was life. The trees were beautiful, but also holy. Their tops veiled the sunlight from the forest floor as they touched the sky forming cathedrals of light, life and peace.

Some of the trees have lived for a millennium; others for only hundreds of years. The Bicentennial Tree grew with America. Fifty more years have passed in the blink of an eye from the laying of that plaque and hundreds more years of life await this testament to the beauty of creation.

There is an astonishing truth about these trees as they soar towards the skies and grow broader than is imaginable. Unless murdered by the hand of man, they will always be alive. Even in death they are capable of being the root of new life and trees. They are a miracle, like America.

It doesn’t seem possible — at first glance — that the Bicentennial Tree and the nation it celebrates and has lived with over its entire life share the same threat.

Human beings are capable of creating transcendent beauty and apocalypses of suffering. The same hardness, malice and greed that would lead a human being to cut down such a magnificent specimen of life for a pile of money, or perhaps for no other impulse than to destroy something beautiful, is a symptom of the same terrible disease that threatens the United States.

I think some people look at the swirling chaos and danger of this moment, and focus on the daily acts of institutional vandalism and constitutional disloyalty without pondering deeply enough the disease of the human heart and soul that trigger such destruction, and are the gateway to so much suffering, misery and war. There is wisdom that has accumulated through time, and its lessons that are forgotten are usually remembered as the  preface for greater tragedies that eclipse the memories of past disasters. Perhaps it has always been this way, but what was accepted as a deep truth by American leaders of both political parties over the last 80 years is that there could never be another world war because humanity could not survive it. The imperfect solution was a doctrine that declared peace will be preserved through an overwhelming military, economic and spiritual strength grounded in the power of human freedom, liberty and progress.

There is a caustic laziness that courses through so much of our political debates and dialogue that has exaggerated differences, inflamed disagreement and obliterated concepts like respect, tolerance, open-mindedness and humility in our politics. The lack of grace, narrowness of vision and an absence of understanding and compassion in society have awakened a terrible malevolence. The simple truth is that the disease is so terrible and dangerous it is hard to say the name out loud because such terribleness was supposed to be long extinguished, yet is gathering again.

Have you ever been to the World War II Memorial in Washington DC?  It lies directly between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Because that is so, its construction was controversial and hotly debated. Yet 20 years after its dedication, the placement seems perfect. It anchors remembrance of our founding and civil war with the greatest event in human history placed in the middle, which fulfilled a long ago prophesy about the destiny of the United States.

When American independence was won at Yorktown, the Marquis De Lafayette exclaimed, “Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country." He believed slavery would die as deeply as he believed the new world would save the old.

Four hundred and five thousand Americans would die in the fourth decade of the twentieth century in a global war against fascism and virulent nationalism. Upwards of 80 to 100 million people — no one really knows for sure — were killed around the world. Nazi Germany systematically murdered 11,000,000 people viewed as subhuman, including more than six million Jews. Sixteen million Americans served in the Armed Forces of the United States, and tens of millions served the war effort working in factories, ship yards, and a thousand other industries. It was a war between the darkness and the light, between human slavery and freedom.

What does it mean when Trump, a man who refused to honor America’s war dead, while desecrating the service of millions more, delivers a speech to a room full of cheering Americans, while calling his political opponents a threat to America as grave as the Nazis?

What does it mean when Donald Trump speaks at CPAC, and promises concentration camps, a police state, political imprisonment and retaliation?

What does it mean when a political party abandons democracy?

What does it mean when Nazis mingle effortlessly with MAGA|GOP activists at CPAC, where the “N-word” and “Jew” are openly and venomously spoken?

It means we face a terrible storm, and it must be pushed back.

The fight between Trump and his opposition is a battle between degeneracy versus decency.

It is a fight between fascism and the American way of life.

There is no question — and has now been for some time — what the bloviating Queens hustler has become.

He is an American fascist and his cause is confident, assertive and aggressive. They must be stopped. They must be defeated, and no, it cannot be appeased.

I feel the trees might know this for they have seen it all. They are alive and still, epic and wise. They have been witnesses to our existence and survival.

Why is it that some men wish to put human beings in chains, while others seek to break them?

I wish I knew, and had an answer.

Please understand what last week’s Alabama Supreme Court IVF ruling is. It is the manifestation of a dogma of subjugation and control being brought to life. Incredibly, it is offered by its dangerous authors as benign, necessary and consistent with liberty.

Remember something. Adolf Hitler took power through an election. He didn’t run on a platform of murder and genocide. Inflation and chaos were enough to do the trick. What he did later is nothing he hadn’t promised to do earlier. Then, like now, no one could hear because no one would listen.

During the coming year, you will meet people who will ask with deep sincerity about why we should arm the Ukrainians. It’s an old question. The answer is the same today as it was then — with a bit of a twist. Understanding what Vladimir Putin believes comes with crib notes so long as you know your Nazi history for he is saying exactly what Hitler said more than 90 years ago. Here at home Trump is saying precisely what all of Hitler’s stooges said. They are saying the same things that Charles Lindbergh and the American fascists said on the eve of destruction, while there was still time to avert the catastrophe.

Perhaps we are incapable of absorbing the lessons from the ages because we have not stood witness ourselves, despite the best efforts of our ancestors to send us a message.

When WWII ended its most noble leader — FDR — was dead, but his life had saved humanity from the darkness. He understood defeating the evil would not harken a just society. He knew the space needed to be filled with better. He knew peace required a great leap forward in human imagination.

Even in death, FDR, like the great redwoods, was able to create new life, new growth and new hope. After six long years of war and destruction, during the first month of peace, the world’s leaders came to the trees, and stood still under the timeless canopy that had been patiently waiting for them for an eon before the first Europeans stepped foot on this magnificent continent. There, shrouded in mist, with a running stream, and birds singing they imagined a peaceful world as they honored an architect of such possibility.

Think about this as a legacy and think about America and her people. Don’t we deserve leaders who have goodness in their intentions. I believe we do.

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