I remember my father weeping when President Kennedy was shot. For a 12-year-old to see their father weep uncontrollably — a bomber pilot who in 87 missions had seen the world’s pain, a man who in that darkness loved quoting the soaring idealism of Don Quixote — was wrenching and bewildering. He was heartsick.
Kennedy was a man my father admired, a man who earned respect in the war, a man who — in my father’s eyes — had an insatiable idealism, a fierce intellect and the courage to admit his mistakes as he sought to bring to life the inspired call of our country’s dream. I watched my father so filled with hope, ecstatic with Kennedy’s ascension to power. My father was a man of words, and Kennedy’s brilliant call, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” helped my father give shape to his idealism and make sense of the lives he had taken in the war.
At his inauguration, Kennedy said:
“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country, and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”
I am heartsick today. I spend much time in class seeking to rekindle the fire that Kennedy alludes to, to inspire in students a predisposition to idealism necessary to face these times of “maximum danger.” And, ultimately, to ensure that my soul’s fire continues to burn bright.
Our world is literally on fire. Lethal climatic events reflect our total disregard for any ecological conscience, with global averages of heat and air quality hovering at or exceeding record highs. Our nation is engaged in an unprovoked war in the Middle East; at the same time, para-military thugs roam our streets, spreading terror and murdering people without any accountability. Our right to vote is being threatened; this arrogant disregard for the democratic spirit is unconscionable.
Our nation is on fire because we created a culture of mutual exploitation where social worth is conflated with economic value; our land a commodity belonging to us instead of a community to which we belong and respect. To smother any resistance, we punish thoughtful patriotism, commodify idealism and foster education where critical thinking is replaced by mindless consumption of dogma, intellectual courage replaced with obsequious obedience. Our nation shows no capacity for self-reflection or admitting mistakes. Our administration, our culture and educational systems have snuffed out the Kennedy-era fire that inspired my father and so many others.
And now it’s time, as my mother would say, to grow up. (This was a no-nonsense phrase spoken sternly to me when my cause was unredeemable, and my ethical and moral evolution so precarious as to endanger my survival.) Our nation’s current identity today is unredeemable, mortally wounded and in desperate need of an intellectual and moral revolution. Our nation needs to grow up.
In my Tomorrow’s Voices classes, we read author and philosopher Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic,” a passionate call for moral evolution, as a requisite for the survival of Earth. He sees our separation from the earth as an arrogant addiction to self. He argues in “The Land Ethic” that throughout human history there have been ethical revolutions, from governing individual-to-individual relationships, to individual-to-society, and, finally, a fusing of philosophical and ecological tenets into a moral doctrine.
Our survival hinges on this moral leap and compels us to redefine humans as “plain members and citizens” of the “biotic community,” shifting our relationship with nature from economic domination to moral responsibility. This evolution is ecologically and morally requisite to notions of resilience, justice and sustainability, to preserving the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community, of which we are an integral part.
I see this understanding in student writings, though unfortunately not in our public discourse. Student Anna Sophia Brown wrote, “We often separate ourselves (from nature). In fact, we have named nature as its own entity, unique from humanity and society. Energy, however, is recycled and passed and exchanged not just between living beings, but through the water, decay and rock. That energy connects each of us, and, like radio waves, you just have to tap into it or get the right signal. I truly believe you can learn about God, or power, or spirituality wherever you go, because it is everywhere. The world breathes beauty for us to inhale, but we have to be willing to fill our lungs.”
I have read Leopold’s “Thinking Like a Mountain” countless times in class. He reflects about his remorse after senselessly shooting a wolf. “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes — something known only to her and to the mountain.” This was Leopold’s personal awakening.
Our country is primed for an awakening. We need to find our fire, and mind that light. All spiritual traditions speak to a light that illuminates an honorable way to live life, where words and actions consistently align. It involves accountability, telling the truth and doing the right thing, even when it’s the hard thing to do. It is where idealism lives.
I go to Yellowstone Park to see wolves. Wolves are my way to feed my fire; they tether me to my spiritual hunger to honor my time on earth. Years ago, in the Lamar Valley, a Ukrainian couple asked if they might take a peek through my telescope at two wolves I was watching. They looked, quietly watched and, seconds later, huge tears fell from their eyes.