An Elder Voice

Should you choose to listen to the voice of a true elder of our large tribe, Bush, you could do not better than read Jimmy Carter's column in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. He wrote, to my mind, an exemplary masterpiece of clear elder wisdom--one that combined a broad, intelligent, and critical understanding of the world with a load of thoughtful patience and compassion. Above all, he wrote as someone who no longer has a petty, personal stake in the outcome of events, but a very deep and thoroughly grounded sense of responsibility to his country and his world. His vision was broad, comprehensive, even, and his tone was that of a wise and kindly grandfather--but not pompous, Bush. Not at all. And not smart-ass or self-righteous. He avoided paternalistic scolding in favor of a genuine sensitivity and seriousness of purpose. Yet he made clear his concern for the direction in which your administration is now leading the country.

I fear you listen too much to your Cheney, for an elder voice--a man who appears, at least, to carry the weight of elderhood, but whose stake in power and wealth is all too clear. He speaks with the semblance of wisdom, ponderously, but his words are informed not by the embracing breadth of a true elder, but by a carefully concealed anger, a meanness, a spirit of revenge, an obsession with power.

One of the spiritual assets we have sacrificed, in our society's haste for progress and insatiable appetite for material well-being, is the value that tribes older and perhaps in some ways wiser placed on the importance of elders in the community. True eldership brings with it a sense of detachment that is the better part of wisdom. Our personal needs grow less--at least the material ones--and our vision, as a consequence, grows less dependent on them. By the same token, understanding becomes broader, more inclusive, more complete.

So thank you, Jimmy Carter, for modeling this kind of wisdom with such eloquence. And thanks to the Times for giving him the platform. While on the subject of the op-ed pages of the Times, however, I need to wonder aloud what has been going on with Robert Sheer? Has he been fired--not to put too fine a point on it? Discontinued? Superannuated? And what does he himself have to say about the abrupt disappearance of his weekly column. The note in today's Times was a poor excuse for an explanation. If you want to fire someone, I say, fire Michael Ramirez! Not your voice-in-the-wilderness on the left.

Oh, and I watched the moon-set over the Hollywood Hills at around six this morning, Bush. A few words to celebrate that special beuaty:

Moonset

Full moon set
on the Hollywood Hills.
The tall heads of the eucalyptus
bob in the breeze.
Down there, the lights
of the city. Silence
feeds me.