Politics and religion and the voice of the soul

A warning. This is unfinished. It is 1:25 am and I have to sleep. I just can't sleep when I'm stuck on something, and I've run amuck in knee deep mud pondering politics and religion which are off-topic at home in the interest of sanity and survival. If I don't post it, I won't finish it... so its out there...feel free to fix it for me. I'd love to stop the bleeding.

I am tired of politics. I am tired of religion. In the story in which we find ourselves, both are causes of deep sorrow and pain for me. We have become a nation so polarized--left vs. right, liberal against conservative, "Christians" pitted against non-Christians and against themselves over differences in beliefs--that it leaves scars on the soul. And I think maybe I'm not alone and it isn't just mine that bears the wounds...and I wonder...could this be the beginning of the end? Could the widening gap between the Us's and the Them's with the cacophony of hateful words and proliferation of falsehoods be eating away at the very soul of democracy like acid rain on the monuments of antiquity? I am angry, saddened, and bewildered.

I wonder what it means to be a proud American anymore. If it means drawing a line in the sand, taking a side, and using every measure at my disposal --fear, hate, and lies-- to beat down the other side over matters of faith or government, I want no part. No part. But the alternative to that can not be stepping aside and cowering in my own little world because to do nothing, say nothing in this time is participating by default.

The cerebral hemmorage I'm having now is how one, or a group of far more than one, builds the bridge that spans the divide. I think it starts with getting it out of the heads which are playing like scratched up records, stuck in stagnant ideas, and moving it to the hearts and the inner voices of one's soul. There is value in that voice, not just mine or yours or the people with money or power or in this group or that. The song of every human soul on this whirling blue ball is worthy of being heard.

La vie en rose

Sunday morning sunrise at Bethel Beach...

 ...no place I'd rather be.

 Noah woke me early and off we ran.

Looking for another sunrise as beautiful as the last.