Counter Narrative

So much is being written about the reckless edicts issuing out of our newly crowned monarch I have nothing more to add. The usurpation of Congressional power by the executive, without regard for human toll is well underway. Shock and awe were the stated goals, and the reign of terror is proceeding as planned. The cycle of history has us reenacting Germany circa 1933.

High culture offered much to cocoon Bavarians and Berliners. I now know the feeling. Being more middlebrow, I look to movies as a source of transport along with the restorative power of poetry and literature. Choose your artform. Any enrichment and enlightenment become a counter narrative to the menace we have let loose. Against the requiem there is heard an ode.

An art experience is not passive. It must be met with a reception that recharges our inherent creativity. At the bottom of this interchange is love, in all its permutations; that which nourishes the human heart. Now more than ever before is the time to bond and support each other.

For me, love releases a certain energy, a permission to risk and to forgive. It is the force that through the green fuse drives the flower. Love is the juice against which the despot withers.

Embodying the potency of that otherwise unnamable goodness is the poetic prose of Niall Williams. In his recent book, Time of the Child, he creates and immerses us into a world both real and yet of another realm, which is to say, the extraordinary ordinary. He risks schmaltz but never crosses over. He dares to be enchanting.

To bear witness to the dissolution of our former democracy, today, I count on the written word. Tomorrow it may be a film or some other visual lift. Every day it is the joining of kindred souls.