We call this the holiday season, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But for many of us, “the world is too much with us,” as Wordsworth put it in a poem decrying the denatured, materialist world he lived in. For us, it means facing the naked threat of hate and aggrievement winning out over love and acceptance, of craven loyalty to an aspiring autocrat over dedication to the rule of law without fear or favor, to name only a few of the Trump election’s disastrous consequences.
In 1914, World War I’s early days, the clash between the mighty forces of imperial Germany and Allied forces, battling on the so-called Western Front, ground down, literally, into trenches separated by narrow No Man’s Lands. Each could hear the others’ voices and even smell each others’ cooking and other odors. Days and months of futile immobility, yet constant, deadly danger, wore on the spirits of the front-line foot soldiers, far removed from the high commands who plotted lofty strategy in secure war rooms. Their fate was totally beyond their control. They were expendable, powerless pawns in a cruel, deadly chess game.
But then came what was later called the Christmas Truce (search the internet for details). What happened — there have always been widely varying accounts — is far less important than that it unquestionably did happen. One of the most affecting versions is that, in the late-night hush of Christmas Eve, a lone voice singing “Stille Nacht” — or perhaps “Silent Night” — soared over No Man’s Land, joined soon after by those on the other side singing it in their language. During the hours that followed on Christmas Day, they met person to person, open hands clasping open hands, smiles answering smiles, sharing food and drink. In that shining moment, they were not weapon-toting enemies, but fellow human beings who, in most cases, shared the Christian tradition of celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace, the baby Jesus. It was a precious moment of divine light in what came to be a four-years-long night of devastating, demonic darkness.
Over those 1,418 days, all notions of heroism, nobility, grace, and glory died in this grinding, gruesome, grotesque conflict that took the flower of youth from those on all sides. In the aftermath, as is their calling and their gift, some poets took to discerning and distilling the truth of the horrendous matter. Most memorable are W.B. Yeats’ words that have rung true for me in trying past times, but at no time so much as now. They are in his poem, “The Second Coming.” While his vision of a Second Coming is contrary to the Christian hope of Jesus’ promised second coming, his description of the current crisis rings ever so clear: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”
Fellow citizens, his diagnosis of what is lacking is implicitly a call to action — our concerted action — to flip the script: Commit to the fair and equal rule of law; commit to genuine constitutional commitment; stand against violence of every kind; foster justice for all, without discrimination.
It will take clarity, courage, and long-haul commitment.
But what choice do we really have, as true patriots?
Fred Reklau, a minister, is a resident of Oak Park.
