The Good Decisions Project’s series of posts, the current news, and this writers instincts warn that the current life of an activist and resister to the chaotic, often brutal policies in the United States can lead to the malnutrition of the soul. The air we all breathe seems to ring with rage and concern from so many unfamiliar origins. In fighting this soulless administration it is so easy to become depleted.  Still my instincts for this entire past year have been reliably a notch ahead of the news cycle, and this sudden concern and tiredness in me may suggest that there are many people out there on the edge of despair and exhaustion for their once dear country.

In our own past culture there have been writers and performers whose American roots are as deep as Woody Guthrie, minds as wide open as Walt Whitman, hearts as large as Aretha Franklin who lived in hard times but their beautifully pitched voices raised our souls and spirits.  Even today we have   philosophers and poets who can open our closed defended hearts sufficiently with their surgical insight to illuminate dimensions we didn’t even know were in us.  Their insights from history and the contemporary scene are the high nutrition injections of care and beauty our nation’s collective soul craves without even knowing of its absence. The short coming of our shared minds is much of what we need as a nation lies in territory we may have never really explored or simply forgotten.

A Modest Proposal for Good

We are in this battle for the the long run. Recovery for America will be a marathon and relay race at the same time.  Marathon because my generation will pass before the country is back in its tradition, and relay because the only hope is we have a younger generation to whom to pass the baton of resistance and rebuilding. Still the younger generation must want that baton.  Cyclical rage and anger won’t do it so we must bank the stove for a long winter. I will be searching for language that is fuel for the long run and passing it along. As our movement stares fixed into the abyss of violence and lose, we absolutely must, whatever our religion or politics, progressive, liberal, centrist, or conservative live balanced healthy lives. This Project will try to feed the balance that we may pull back from the abyss to build future, justice and peace. Yes, we must persist, but for the long run.  That will be good.