February 8: Scary Stuff, William Stafford, "For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid"

Each time I look at the television or my iPhone, I am confronted by news stories that scare the shit out of me.  A President of the United States who violates the Constitution.  A Secretary of Education whose knows nothing about the educational system.  An Attorney General who was criticized by the widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., for being a racist.  That stuff is scary.

There's a lot of fear in the United States right now.  Compassion and love and charity are not words I would apply to those in charge of my country at the moment.  Quite the opposite.  And that worries me.

But I have faith, too.  Therefore, I believe, in the end, that goodness will overcome the racism and Islamophobia and homophobia and xenophobia and misogyny and  . . . Well, you get the idea.

So, Saint Marty has hope tonight.  Saint Marty also has a mug of hot chocolate generously spiked with Bailey's Irish Cream.

For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid

by:  William Stafford

There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot--air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.