Needed: Angelic possession?

The times are again perilous. We seem to be at a crossroads, questioning our institutions, our willingness to remain united, our commitment to ensure that all our people enjoy our Declaration’s “self evident” truths, and our belief that objective truths exist at all.

This week a new Administration will take the reins of government. It will be imperfect, just as all our past ones have been. Its leaders will not be angels, though as Albert Schweitzer commented, “A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.” We can only hope that they will trend on the saintly side.

Inaugurations used to be so quaint: the outgoing and incoming first families sitting together, despite any deep differences or dispositions; the preinaugural photo-op chats; the general sense of continuity and stability. This Inauguration takes place in an unfamiliar Washington, one that resembles a military base more than a national park. We’ve survived worse: in 1814 British troops invaded the city, burning the original U.S. Capitol building and the White House, forcing Madison (by then our fourth President) and Dolly Madison to flee the city.

This year it wasn’t a foreign power laying siege, it was us. Only some of us, to be sure, but still us, and it seems clear that for each person who stormed the Capitol there are untold thousands who would have eagerly joined in. We all have the right to “peaceably” assemble. This wasn’t peaceable.

We’ve been through a terrible year, its terrors lingering, unwelcome but unavoidable, into 2021. Exorcising them can’t be done by changing the tenants at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., or just wishing the terrors away. When will we rout the pandemic, rebuild our economy, follow the mask-distance-wash mantra, and return to civilized, though vigorous, disagreements?

It’s up to us, more than our newly elected leaders, to purge from our systems the poison that led us over the last few decades to view each other as devils. Some of us have acted like demons, possessed, if you will, to destroy each other and the symbols that bind us. “The devil made me do it” is a weak defense, especially when the speaker has planned his misdeed in advance.

You never hear about angelic possession, maybe because it would violate free will. Some paintings of angels show them whispering in people’s ears, unseen except to art lovers. That’s a far cry from being possessed — angelic persuasion, perhaps.

If the angels aren’t whispering, we’re the ones who must persuade others to restore our way of life.

louie@coastsidenewsgroup.com.