This article concerning languages caught my attention recently. It is important to understand that language is the vehicle for the transmission and preservation of culture. Without our language, our way of looking at the world, the shared wisdom contained in our community could not exist, nor be passed along. So I wanted to share with you an article from Intersect, the newsletter of Cross-Cultural Communications. Here’s CCC’s description from its website:

Cross-Cultural Communications (CCC) is the only international training agency in the United States for medical and community interpreting, and cultural competence, with over 400 licensed trainers in 43 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Guam and six other countries (Argentina, Canada, Panama, Thailand, Spain and Qatar). In addition to training, we provide technical assistance, consulting and course development.

From “About Us”, CCC Website

The newsletter brings to the attention of language practitioners (interpreters, translators, signers, educators), other disciplines (law, religion, government) where language plays a significant role, and the interested public the launch of the United Nations project to preserve indigenous languages, which are disappearing at an alarming rate. I have attached here the notice that appears in Intersect. If you want to follow up on topics like these, you can request your own subscription to the newsletter at the CCC website, http://www.cultureandlanguage.net.

Though not endangered in any way, the languages that are featured in my mini-articles are discussed focusing on numerous issues where language and its usage affect how we understand ourselves and others, and the way we go about our lives. If you are curious, click on the tab, Cogitata, in the menu bar at the top of the page.

It is worth the trouble to contemplate what life would be like without language to communicate, record, store, and transmit the days of our lives. And it is likewise worth it to respect and preserve all human languages, each a unique vehicle by which we make sense of the world.

Annually on the sixth day of January, Eastern Orthodox Christians traditionally observe Theophany to celebrate the revelation at the baptism of Jesus Christ. Widely known also as Three Kings Day, Latin American Christians observe it to commemorate the journey of the Magi who followed the legendary star that led them to Bethlehem to worship the Christ child. The Gospel of Matthew (2.1-2), records it thus, “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem saying, Where is He that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” The Western Church calendar calls this period of time Epiphany, and in many places it is celebrated over several days with gifts, music, and feasting. For all Christians, whatever their denomination, it is the season for sharing the joy of Christmas, a time for greeting one and all with generosity and compassion, a time for spreading hope.

Now two years on since that tragic event, as a direct result of which five police officers and one of the rioters lost their lives and dozens were wounded, the beat goes on. Many of those who supported the objective of the insurrection and continue to deny the validity of the election results of 2020 sit today in the Congress. They are unapologetic, and what is more telling, they have patently failed to uphold their oath of office: “… to bear true faith and allegiance” [to the Constitution]. The extremists of the far right have continued to portray the insurrectionists as persecuted patriots and the attack on the Capitol as a legitimate exercise of “free speech.” Their ill-founded obsession is relentless:

It’s almost like Jan. 6 is baked into the electorate on the far right. When they see Jan. 6, they automatically think peaceful patriots being persecuted as political prisoners,” said Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman and senior technical adviser for the House select committee that investigated the attack. “It normalizes violence as an acceptable method for political disagreement. In effect, it endorses domestic terrorism. Not to mention that January 6th is a case study in radicalization and actions based completely on fantasy. [1] 

But January 6 will remain a day of joy and celebration long after the tumult of 2021 has faded away. In spite of all the Sturm und Drang that has followed on that fateful day, a far greater thing endures. When the last vestiges of a madness provoked by political and economic discontent, ill-willl, and self-serving disinformation have passed into history, the hope for a better world will banish despair, unite our fellow citizens, and usher in once more a time of mutual trust and understanding. The real message of January 6 is not hatred and violence, but hope and renewal, not just for Christians, but for everyone. Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke, 2.10-11)

May the victory of light over darkness proclaimed on this day of joy lift up our hearts, and may God, the Father of Lights, confer His blessing and guidance on everyone as we move ahead into the new year. Let us sing with the angels, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men! (Luke, 2.14)

Updated from January 6, 2023

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[1] “Supporters raise millions to rebrand Jan. 6 rioters as ‘patriots’,” by Annie Gowen, The Washington Post, January 6, 2023.

“Remember Pearl Harbor!”

That’s not just an old song title from the 1940s. I know, most people who read this post will complain that they don’t remember the 1940s. “Why should we?” they will say. Well, there are several reasons. But let’s begin with today, December 7, 2022.

If you are displaying the American flag at your home or place of work, lower the flag to half-staff. It is a commemoration, a solemn commemoration of the surprise attack on the United States naval fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on that Sunday morning in 1941, an attack that cost the lives of thousands of American Sailors, Marines, and Soldiers. They were sleeping in their bunks, or attending church services, or just going about their routines when the attack began just before 8 am[i].

Then they appeared, the Japanese aircraft that launched their massive attack with studied precision on the sleeping American naval installation. When it was over, most of the ships in the harbor had been sunk or badly damaged, and rendered out of operation. The now well-known battleship, Arizona, in particular, went down with much of its crew, over 1100 sailors and marines, still interred in their watery grave[ii]. The bridge of the Arizona remains above water and has been maintained as a national symbol of the sacrifice of our military personnel on that fateful day.

Then-President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, speaking before an emergency joint session of Congress, announced to the nation the tragic outcome of the attack that he described as “…Sunday, December 7, 1941, A Day that will live in Infamy….” And so it was. But it was also that terrible event on that terrible day that propelled the United States of America into World War Two, a war that already had been raging in Europe for over two years.

America had, for the most part, been sleeping, holding fast to isolationism, and despite the warnings from knowledgeable world watchers at home and abroad, preferred to stay out of European entanglements. Up to that point, the outside world, for most Americans, could go its own way. At home, we were just fine as we were, away from the crises and wars that troubled European history for centuries. But the world was changing, and not about to leave America out of the mix, and by the end of the war, we had become involved everywhere. The world was becoming a global society, and America had become an integral part of it, indeed, an indispensable part of it. And when some people say, “We don’t need to be involved in NATO, or the UN, or other alliances or global arrangements,” remember that there can be no return to isolationism in this world of supersonic air travel, multinational corporations, Internet, social media, drones in peace and war, and who-knows-what else is coming down the line. The world has grown smaller, and we are smack dab in the middle of it.

So, as we remember Pearl Harbor, and commemorate the men and women who served their country so valiantly in the midst of great peril on that awful day, let us not forget the lessons of that pivotal time in history. America must remain vigilant and prepared. We must nurture our global ties with our friends, but also seek to balance carefully our relationships with friends and adversaries alike.

The complexities of the global arena demand leadership capable of dealing with those complexities, and that needs an informed citizenry that understands and accepts what such challenges entail. As citizens we must continue to respect our founding principles and remain loyal to our Constitution and our democratic values. That is what the “greatest generation” fought a bloody world war to preserve and defend.

In turbulent times, we have come dangerously close to losing those values and, in turn, losing the core of our democratic republic. Self-serving demagogues who push their own agendas, promote the politics of exclusion, and stir up angry mobs with shameless mendacity have appeared in our history from time to time. We have rejected them before and committed them and their chicanery to the dustbin of history. And we will again, if we hold steadfastly to our national values and stand behind responsible leadership that takes seriously its oath of office.

That’s why we must not fail to remember what history has to tell us. Or be doomed to repeat it.

May God in His mercy remember all those who suffered and died for our freedom.

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[i] THE AFTERMATH

• A total of 2,404 United States military and civilians were killed, 1,177 were killed aboard the USS Arizona and 68 civilians were killed. A total of 64 Japanese military were killed with one taken prisoner
• 15 United States Navy personnel received the Medal of Honor and 51 received the Navy Cross. The Pearl Harbor Commemorative Medal was later given to all military veterans of the attack.

Sources: Naval History and Heritage Command, National WWII Museum

[ii] The USS Arizona Memorial, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on USS Arizona ….

Source: Wikipedia

A salute to our Veterans of every era. Today and every day we are indebted to you for your faithful service, your steadfast adherence to duty. This grateful nation honors you and pays you the highest respect. We have remained a free nation because of you.

Let us remember: All Gave Some, Some Gave All.

The official stood before us and said, “Raise your right hand and repeat after me:”

I, Richard L. Marrash, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

I have sworn that oath twice. First, when I enlisted in the U. S. Army, and again, when I entered federal service. My duty to that oath remains; I have never retracted it, and to my knowledge no authority has ever relieved me of its claim upon my loyalty. I am honor bound by what I declared. It is a commitment for life.

Read carefully the obligations I accepted in the oath: “… bear true faith and allegiance …;” “… without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion …;” “… well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office ….” Now consider the words, attitudes, and behaviors of many public officeholders who have taken that same oath of office. Reflect on their obligation to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution, to well and faithfully discharge the duties of their office.  Ask yourself, have they done so? Have they acted faithfully and honestly in the performance of their office? Indeed, do they show courage in the face of daunting challenges brought on by anger, misguidedness, or outright mendacity? Or do they fail to honor their sworn duty to protect the constitutional bedrock of our democratic Republic?

Elections are upon us once again, and candidates, political parties, and interest groups clamor for our attention, and our donations. They surround us with strident claims promising to improve our lives, solve our problems, and make our country better off by ridding us of their wicked political rivals. Their ads flood the Internet, TV broadcasts, email, and social media, while posters on every street corner tell you who endorses whom (i. e., the unions, the police, various PACs, the former president, diverse lobbies, etc.), but they do not tell you the character of the person running for office. That you have to find out for yourself. That task might be one of the most important things you can do as an American citizen in these challenging times–deciding whom you deem worthy of holding public office.

Do your own research, and seek truth. Don’t spend precious time glued to special interest websites and social media. Read broadly and in depth. Be a critical observer of words and deeds. Become familiar with the wide range of issues affecting our society. Understand the challenges involved in trying to create, debate, and implement economic and social policy, and don’t be swayed by the oversimplifications of candidates whose stock responses to problem solving are nothing more than assigning blame rather than working on serious solutions.

Ask yourself, have incumbents been faithful in discharging the duties of their offices, have they counseled their supporters to follow the laws and respect the institutions of our democracy? Or have they pandered to the anger of misinformed and disgruntled partisans for political benefit rather than try to calm the angry passions and exercise the constructive leadership our nation needs to tamp down today’s out-of-control political turbulence. Have they stood up for the founding principles of our democracy? Have they remembered the oath?

I hear my friends and neighbors often remark with frustration, “How can you know what is true today? I don’t trust the media, I don’t trust the government or political parties, I don’t trust the politicians, so whom can you trust?” There is no easy answer. Our nation is deeply divided. Citizens are rightly angry and disillusioned, and struggling under the weight of rising consumer prices caused by the highest inflation in decades. For so many the economic pain is acutely personal, and their political leaders have done nothing to relieve their woes. They have lost the trust of their citizens. They will have to work long and hard to win it back.

The strain on our national fabric is severe. Violence lurks just outside the confines of our deteriorating national accord, and much of our political leadership at all levels of government fails to condemn it and deal with it firmly and forthrightly, as fidelity to their oath of office demands of them. And some of the more openly self-serving and irresponsible have even chosen to exploit it. Shakespeare’s Mark Antony recognized the tactic well when he unleashed the Roman mob: Mischief, thou art afoot, take thou what course thou wilt.

Here’s something you can do: Read. Read about the candidates. Read about the issues. Read domestic sources. Read international sources. Read. Read. Read. And learn. Cable TV and the Internet cannot provide the depth of information and detail that is necessary for healthy reflection and informed judgement. There is far too much superficial blather, wild fabrication, and pernicious lying on social media—the anything-goes platform where self-appointed trolls can spew out unchallenged whatever outlandish nonsense they can concoct. Eager followers will embrace it, they want confirmation of what they already believe, not the debunking of falsehoods, not truth. Accessing their special partisan fix has become the drug of choice for too many seeking validation from likeminded addicts even as they reject any inconvenient reality that contradicts them. Cognitive bias is something we all suffer from to varying degrees, so learn to resist it in yourself. It’s worth the effort. Truth always is.

Do the work. Read: national and international newspapers, respected magazines and journals, academic papers, professional journals and independent reports. You are not limited to a single type of media. There are numerous sources of sound information that can help you sift through the layers of detail to clarify your ideas and gain a nuanced understanding of the people and the issues. Along the way there might be times when it is tempting to jump to facile conclusions, join the chorus echoing the latest slogans, and denounce the current scapegoat. Don’t. That might make you feel good for awhile, but it will never solve the real problems; it will only help further erode trust in our system of government. The purveyors of unbalanced rhetoric do not want you to think; they want you to parrot them blindly. Don’t play into their hands. Instead, pay attention to all sides of an argument with an open mind, and be skeptical when, in lieu of answers, all that a candidate can do is deflect, denigrate, and deny. Demand more from them. Hold them accountable to their oath of office, to their duty to the Constitution of the United States of America.

The authoritarian movements in Europe in the 1930s began by propounding outrageous lies, and succeeded by repeating them incessantly. That brought to the world stage dictators on an epic scale, the most notorious being Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. It took a world war and tens of millions of casualties, to bring that terrible period to an end. We learned then the high cost that had to be paid when highly evolved, sophisticated societies ignored the undermining of the rule of law, allowed the spread of vicious and lethal falsehoods, and tolerated the systematic violation of human rights. Liberty and justice can disappear. Democracy cannot survive when citizens lose faith in it.

Do not let that happen here. A well-informed citizenry is strong protection against the slide into authoritarianism. Be vigilant. Be well informed. Choose your candidates with wisdom. Vote.

Ye shall know them by their fruits.

I was thinking this morning that posting another message about wartime loss and sacrifice might be regarded as redundant coming this soon after Memorial Day. Then again, this day, June 6, is special in its own right, just like December 7 and the memory of the Japanese attack on the U. S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that plunged the United States headlong into World War Two. On that Sunday morning in 1941, we found ourselves at war with Japan in the Pacific, and twenty-four hours later, Japan’s German ally, Adolf Hitler, declared war on the United States. We would now come face to face with Nazi aggression in Europe, an entanglement we, as a neutral country, had avoided since the war in Europe began in 1939.

Less than three years later, the Allied forces brought their combined strength to Europe to repel the German invaders, whose occupation of most of the countries on the continent had been destructive and brutal. Hitler had declared to the ungrateful people of those occupied countries that they should welcome his establishment of a Fortress Europe on the ludicrous rationale that he was saving Europe from Communism, immorality (read: homosexuality), and the evils that stemmed from the activities of “treasonous” (read: anti-Nazi) intellectuals. But the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi invasions of neighboring countries were about to be brought to an end.

It was 78 years ago today, June 6, 1944 when the Allied forces undertook that fateful mission. D-Day. Code-named Operation Overlord, that dreadful day saw thousands of casualties as American, British, and Canadian troops stormed from their landing craft onto their assigned beaches. It was a grim, bloody encounter, and the American troops who came ashore on Omaha and Utah Beaches took the brunt of the German resistance. The GIs were coming in from the sea, there was nowhere else to go but forward. They ran into the face of withering direct machine gun fire from a solidly entrenched enemy. But they took the beaches, and they took extremely heavy casualties. Airborne and glider units had been dropped off target and were scattered into German Wehrmacht-infested areas, but the fragmented units linked up where they could and proceeded to their missions. The liberation of Europe had begun. It ended on May 8, 1945, V-E Day, after almost a year of heavy fighting.

I think it is still important to remember D-Day and its significance for the shape of post-World War Two Europe, and indeed the world. Out of that alliance of the western nations of the Atlantic came the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO. It is still relevant today as we observe the unfolding of Russian aggression in Ukraine, and the combined response of NATO to meet that challenge. Putin will learn Hitler’s lesson.

Finally, I would like to remember the service of my uncle, Private George A. Marrash, 23^rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. George was severely wounded during the Normandy invasion and was evacuated to England where he died of his wounds a few weeks later on July 17, 1944. He along with so many of his fellow soldiers died for the moral and civic values we and other true democracies hold dear. Let’s not permit ourselves to lose those values to lies, demagoguery, and the fanaticism of extremists. That’s what the citizen-soldiers of the greatest generation went out on D-Day to defeat.

As a people, we Americans customarily celebrate this day with parades, picnics, and lots of happy gatherings of families and friends. And having decorated our homes with American flags and banners, and perhaps having attended a local parade, as an appropriate tribute to the fallen heroes of our wars, we turn our attention to the barbecue, sports, and some all around frolicking. This is as it should be normally.

But there is nothing normal about this Memorial Day. For today we have moved beyond the remembrance of the brave and faithful fallen who answered their country’s call. Today an infernal fate has driven us to confront unimaginable loss and pain, and we cannot look away. For today we must also remember the slaughter of the innocents at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Nineteen children whose ages ranged from 9 to 11, and two of their teachers. A slaughter only a few days old . A tragic story full of familiar grim episodes, whose repetition continues to condemn us as a civilized people and haunts our pathetic consciences as we scramble to repeat ad nauseam that “things need to change.”

The necessary changes have been known for decades, but the carnage continues. All-or-nothing thinking has hobbled the ability of responsible people to take any sensible steps to reign in the excess of gun violence in every kind of vulnerable location. The Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution is not under assault! Those who use that pretext to obstruct any and all responsible restrictions (such as universal background checks and age eligibility) on the acquisition of firearms must bear on their consciences the blood of innocent children. The majority of responsible gun owners also support such common-sense legislation, but the opposition, a very small minority that bullies politicians into parroting their “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” narrative, has for years successfully blocked any change. And scores of innocent people, especially our children, have paid the price.

Hollow calls for change have always faded quickly after each tragic incident. Of course, real change has long been needed, and above all, change in the uniquely American worship of the gun, venerated as a sacred object held in reverence above all human critique or interference. No citizen thinks twice about restrictions associated with automobile ownership and operation on the public roads. There’s no complaint about not serving alcohol to minors. And we voluntarily give up some of our personal freedom in numerous situations where special circumstances require it. But we permit no such limitation on our behavior when it comes to the gun. Whenever any action to limit how guns may be acquired or used is proposed, our reaction is visceral. “This shall not pass!”

What about our kids, then? Oh, we do care deeply about the children, claim the gun lobbies, and we advocate arming the teachers in the classrooms. Put more armed security guards in schools. And do more about mental health problems. There’s the real cause of the violence. But we don’t want universal background checks (even if that might have stopped an eighteen-year-old from legally buying an AR-15 and hundreds of rounds of ammunition as soon as he turned eighteen). That was precisely what happened in the sale of the AR-15 and ammunition to the shooter in Uvalde, Texas. Law enforcement authorities tell us that a mere check for a police record is insufficient. All offenses committed by juveniles are expunged once they turn eighteen, so they have no police record. But a complete background check could have uncovered other evidence that showed disturbing behavior. Such red flags might have delayed access to the weapons until a proper intervention could have been made. Would that have happened for sure? No one can say, but it would have provided an opportunity for intervention. Instead, the door to insane violence was thrown wide open.

Speaking at the NRA Convention following the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas Senator Ted Cruz portrayed any attempt to legislate restrictions as interfering with a “human right.” Isn’t that something? Having a gun is a human right! A thing given by God. Are we to suppose that’s what the founders of our republic had in mind when they said that “All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” But they did not go on to say that “among these are life, liberty, and the unrestrained access to weapons of mass destruction without regard to safety, common sense, or any obligations owed to our fellow man.” That self-styled interpretation is left to our generation.

Some raise the cry of “we will lose our freedom.” Or that “leftists, liberals and other undesirables are trying to restrict our freedom, our liberty. We need our guns to defend ourselves against a potentially tyrannical government.” So they marshall all of the resources of social media, sympathetic mass media, and politicians whose election campaigns they have generously funded to harangue their supporters and the general public with the spurious narrative that any restriction on guns will be the “slippery slope” that leads to repeal of the Second Amendment. And so they assure that public fear about the Second Amendment produces inaction once again. And the tail continues to wag the dog!

Among all of the advanced nations of the world, we have the highest rate of gun violence and death, by far: eight times more than our neighbor Canada, 27 times more than Denmark, and 250 times more than Japan. Even in the conflict-ridden Middle East, the United States ranks higher in gun violence than all of the countries there except Iraq. Compared to 22 other high-income nations, the United States’ gun-related murder rate is 25 times higher (from a 2016 study published online by the American Journal of Medicine). Yet we have roughly similar rates of mental illness as in all of those countries. Mental illness is not the pivotal factor in this country’s rate of gun violence. It’s the irresponsibly easy access to guns. There are about 400 million privately owned firearms in the United States, while our population is about 333 million. The U. S. has 5% of the world’s population, but we represent 46% of global private gun ownership.

Columbine, Parkland, Sandy Hook, and now Uvalde. If nothing changes this time around, I predict we will continue down a demonic path to destruction of what was best in American society. The Atlantic magazine recently ran an article by Elizabeth Bruenig titled, A Culture That Kills Its Children Has No Future. Sadly, I agree. We used to believe in a common destiny and the kindness and compassion of a free, law-abiding people who understood their rights and also their obligations–a responsible and honorable people who cherished these values that they sent their fathers and sons off to war to defend. Every Memorial Day, we remember and honor their sacrifice, as we remember and honor them today. And with profound sadness, we must also share this day of remembrance with the fallen children of Uvalde and all of the other schools, churches and synagogues, hospitals, and grocery stores that have seen the slaughter of the innocent.

I’m posting this brief announcement to give notice of my upcoming absence. I expect to be AWOL from the website for a few weeks. This is not a shutdown due to Covid-19, fortunately, but simply a temporary hiatus brought on by my need to have surgery on my eyes: Tomorrow, Thursday, 3 February. I suffer from a condition called glaucoma that has proved difficult to control with medication and simpler procedures, so I will be having a more invasive, but hopefully more successful, intervention that will require a recovery period of several weeks. The irony is that the concept behind Agath – opsis, its very name, proceeds from the notion of a “vision”. So, I do find it ironic that it is my (temporarily) impaired vision that brings things here to a halt although you do not have to have good vision to have a vision of the good. I expect to resume again several weeks from now once both eyes have been treated and recovered. Until then, I hope you will come to the site, visit the Blog and the pieces in the Contemplations section, leave comments, and make suggestions for improving site design or navigation.

I will see you again soon, when I can see better.

For other lovers of language and of languages, I offer this modest website as a place to gather and share your ideas and insights about language in all its multifarious aspects. As I mentioned in my introductory message, I will post some short pieces of mine that were published some time ago in another venue. You will find them under Cogitata on the Contemplations page. Republishing these gives me a way to start the project off with the intention that these pieces will stimulate your desire to contribute your own thoughts. I also hope that some of my humor will find its mark, although my family says I am several years behind the humor curve in today’s popular culture.

My goal is to host a circle of interesting conversation on things that affect us all as human beings whose unique tool for understanding the world is language. So stated, I will do my best to assure that this becomes more than a trivial exercise in stating the obvious or a pedantic expatiating on language as though one had all the answers; however, I do anticipate lively engagement, especially when considering language in its many societal contexts. Recent history at home and abroad surely supplies ample material for consideration.

As I welcome you to Agathopsis, I ask for your patience as I muddle through the process of getting this website properly organized. I expect that I will need to set up appropriate categories for the blog, and do whatever else is necessary to make this an attractive, easy-to-use site–a place where together we can contemplate the good.

Meanwhile, go ahead and look around this embryonic site, and make yourself at home. I will be grateful to receive your suggestions.

Going forward in 2022, my wish for everyone is that you attain peace of mind. While we have not been able to free ourselves completely from concerns over Covid-19, medical science has made rapid strides in developing vaccines and many of our fellow citizens have gotten vaccinated. Our efforts to combat the disease are beginning to pay off despite the resistance of an uncomfortably large number of folks who refuse the vaccine and advice from the medical community. That resistance has needlessly left us with ongoing vulnerability; nevertheless, the battle is being waged effectively enough that most of us can see light at the end of the tunnel–a far cry from the onset of the Covid crisis in February 2020. Yes, it will still take more time to analyze the virulence of the emerging variants of this rapidly evolving virus and to develop more tools to fight off their transmission and impact across our society and across the globe. So have faith. We will get there.

But another disease has gripped our nation that we have not yet been able to address effectively. Unbelief. We have been too long adrift in the current of that pernicious attitude, an attitude that seeks to undermine our very existence as a nation. Why? Because we are afraid. Fear has spawned cynicism and unbelief in the great American experiment and in the decency of our fellow citizens, unbelief in our institutions public and private, unbelief in our government, unbelief in the components of our democratic society that have underpinned our achievements as the most open, creative, productive, and economically successful society in human history. All because we are fearful.

Have we now reached the point of unbelief in ourselves as one nation? Are we to give up on everything we have achieved since our founding fathers first set us on the road to freedom and prosperity in a world where we were a novelty? Indeed, we were a novelty that few around the world expected to survive. But we did survive, and thrive, and we became a magnet for people from all around the world who wanted to build a better life, here, in America. We believed in our institutions and our way of life, and we welcomed those who wanted to share the promise of America with us. That’s how we grew our achievements and successes, by building on the diverse contributions of all those who came here to share the dream with us. We all believed that we could achieve the dream. And we did.

We have never been a perfect society; we have had our problems large and small at all levels of society, but we believed in a free society that respected the rule of law and the peaceful transition of power. And we depended on our constitution and in the tools of government that it provided to guide us to improve and evolve. And we believed in the goodwill of our fellow citizens, our neighbors. We believed we could fix our problems, achieve great things, and become a beacon of light for the world. And we did. By working together, Americans all. One nation, the United States of America.

Through world wars and civil crises, in the face of natural disasters and vicious terrorism, we have risen to all of the challenges thrust upon us and overcome them. Are we less able to do so today? Or do we lack the will? The world is watching to see how we answer those questions.

It’s time to dispel unbelief, to replace cynicism and fear with optimism and hope. It’s time to get hold of ourselves and stop fearing one another. Demonizing our fellow citizens with whom we don’t see eye to eye ultimately devalues the humanity of each one of us. We can disagree respectfully while remaining friends and rallying around the core American values we all share. There is a place for everyone to be heard, so let’s not disparage the sincerity of one another’s patriotism. Rather, we must stop tearing down our beloved country and start believing again in who we are, Americans all, and renew our commitment to our national ideals. Remember, at a dark time in our history, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told Americans, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

The land of the free and the home of the brave is our heritage. Let’s face the challenges of the future together: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.