I walked with two good friends on the beach. The sea was raucous, but the tide was falling. The wind was gusting, flocks of seabirds clamored, and at one point a train clattered by, that iconic cavalcade of sound and color, an elongated hyphen, and we turned and watched it pass, then continued on our way.
In the far distance, a mysterious light blazed brightly from a bluff. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it shone like a beacon, glinting gold, its shape more distinctive as we walked toward it, and eventually we realized it was simply sunlight striking the window of a house at exactly the right angle, transforming it into a gleaming rectangle of light, the intersection of human fabrication and cosmic energy.
Yesterday I listened to an excerpt of a post-election conversation between Jon Stewart and Heather Cox Richardson. I loved her closing words: “Human decency matters,” she said. “A hero keeps trying to do the right thing even when you know the walls are closing in.” And maybe the walls are closing in, but that does not change the fundamentals.