"If You Can't Say Something Nice........"

                                                                       

"If You Can't Say Something Nice......."

My mama used to say if you can't say something nice then you shouldn't say anything at all. I've never really bought into that old saw but, for the last three days my fingers have been frozen at the typewriter keys.....stilled by a depression brought on by the world's most recent ills.

Mass killings in Christchurch, Indecisive Brits and their "Brexit", cowardly Republicans.....and the corrupt rich, buying their children an advantage over the peasantry. Just too much to tackle when your heart is breaking over the societal collapse.

There is always a time in one's life when they are faced with moral choices. From my own experience it comes when you are tempted to lie, or to steal, to be unfaithful, to be disloyal, to take the easy way out. And if you choose wrong you make it so much easier to choose wrong when the next choices are presented to you.

I've always tried make the right choices. Some of my reluctance to stray from the path comes from fear of retribution....from my Creator, or from fear that those I love will think less of me. I haven't always made the right choices....but I try. And I believe it is those tries that rescue us from a total devastation of the soul.

So, in these last few days, in an incapacitated state, I have found no voice to express my sorrow at the corrupt and corrupted all about me. I simply have no answers for the redemption of folks who consistently ignore their moral consciences for the temporary expediency of getting ahead at any cost....the biggest being the stains on the soul.

But that staining is a viral thing. It touches us all in some form....either through fear of being outed for our own sins, or in revulsion that folks can be so utterly sick. Whether it's the CEO of Wells Fargo getting a $2 million dollar annual bonus as head of his scandalous bank, or movie stars and company executives, rich beyond imagination, trying to buy an advantage for their own children. And some of them, both parent and child, gloated about gaming the system, even as God had blessed them with great wealth and the means to live a productive and healthy life.

At this very moment I am sitting here at my desk, looking out at a little dog as he lounges lazily under a spring sun, and I admire him so much more than I do these sick, silk-clad souls whose images flood the front page of the morning paper. The little fella is just a dog. Present him with a T-bone steak, or a single bite of hamburg and he's equally grateful. He lusts only for what I'm willing to offer....and loves me freely even when I can offer him nothing at all.

Oh, but these humans have me metaphorically cowering in the fetal position, ashamed of my species. The depths that we humans can explore are so soul-sickening they strike us dumb with grief.

I'm sorry, Mama. Ain't got much good to say today....so I'll shut up now and wait for a White Hat to come riding over the horizon. God knows we need one about now.

Sigh.