I want to cover my ears and, when I drop my hands, know that this was all just a bad dream. It hasn’t really happened: Shutting off the lifeline of USAID to millions – millions! – of infants, children and adults. Firing people who’ve been faithful public servants, a class and concept of which he is ignorant. Shoving himself into the roles of Kennedy Center leadership as if he’s qualified when, in truth, he's perfectly incompetent.

All this roars into my life because I haven’t been able to shut it down. The noise is deafening. It’s like a screaming machine someone failed to oil. Noise so loud it hurts my ears and denies me the ability to think or act. The evil is being done while the noise immobilizes us, confuses us, uses chaos to keep us at bay, assaults us with today’s message of hatred and meanness before I’ve fully comprehended yesterday’s explosive, deafening roars.

I don’t know where the Resistance will come from in my life or what will make Resistance most effective against this ugly storm of cruelty. But I know I need to find a quiet place to think, to analyze, to imagine, to remember and to bear witness to a life I knew before the screeching stupidities began.

“One of the greatest joys I’ve known in the past thirty years has been preaching in churches and synagogues. Surveying the many denominations in which I’ve led worship in the US and Africa, we’ve concluded that I could be a Unitarian Baptist Presbyterian Methodist Catholic Lutheran Jew.

…I’ve forgotten where I was preaching when I recalled the story of Elijah on Mt. Sinai looking to have a chat with God. Elijah was hanging out at the entrance to a cave where he’d spent the night, hoping God would drop by. Then came a hurricane-like wind that whipped across the mountain’s face; but, says the text, “the Lord was not in the wind.” The mountain trembled in an earthquake, and the earthquake was followed by lightning. “But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a still, small voice.” And, yes, it was in the still, small voice that Elijah heard the Creator of heaven and earth.

As I’ve aged, I’ve had spiritual experiences of various sorts, led by spiritual leaders from a full range of religious and spiritual traditions. For decades in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous I’ve confessed the need for a power greater than myself if I’m to be delivered into sanity and sobriety. And always, when alone and reflecting in silence, I’m drawn to a divine reality containing the power of the universe and speaking to me in such a soft voice that the silence is hardly interrupted.”

It's what I need now: a quiet place where I can think clearly, remember I’m here for a purpose and wonder what that might be.

— Excerpt from my forthcoming book, Uneasy Silence — coming soon

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