This is Sunday so this day this writer will say good things about a good person. Dolly Parton was not at the center of my own life and heart across her life time, but I was always fascinated by my own grudging respect for her talent, voice, generosity, courage and complete unapologetic uniqueness. Until she died this week I never tried to fully understand why I was harboring that feeling of quiet admiration.  Now with our flags at half mast for a week and the media treating her loss as a national event of universal sadness, I think I understand her contributions to this country more completely.  She fully represented the better angels of the American heart of open tolerance in a time when most of us can’t stand the ‘other side’.  She expressed the best of us without reservation, banked millions, donated millions, and had empathy for the whole full diverse spectrum of this troubled country.   

This writer has repeatedly suggested that it is impossible to be a great country without having a great, generous heart and I am probably doomed to address that issue for another two years at least.  But this week, as the tributes to this great hearted woman poured in, I felt a strong emotion chasing down the realization that “We the People” are heart-starved in this moment of our history and we know what we need when we see it.  Not many people’s legacy is as well documented as Dolly Parton’s unique contributions. 

Modest Evidence of Good

This country has been completely stymied lately in terms of how to pull the left wing and right wing voices together in a more unified version of the United States.  The divisions have widened under the current leadership who sometimes appear to have put their hearts in cold storage while they celebrate rage and dismissal.  Anyone who can be as public as Dolly Parton and still hold together the the respect and admiration of the full spectrum of a divided society has something to teach about unity and love. We have the records and the record of her life and legacy to study and wonder at what we have missed that she didn’t as she sang out her life.  That understanding of generous tolerance would be so good. Have a beautiful Sunday.