The title of this blog post is from the poem "In Memoriam", written nearly 150 years ago by English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. He began the poem at a time of personal grief, having lost his best friend, Arthur Hallam, very suddenly and unexpectedly. The crisis, experienced in his young adulthood became a test of his faith and forced him to come to terms with it. Tennyson's life spanned a time of social and political upheaval and he spent a lifetime writing the poem. Plagued by doubts, Tennyson focused on the reality of human love as evidence of a higher reality.
It seems we are living at a time of social and political upheaval as well. The Liberty Bell has a crack.
"The old Independence Bell rang its last clear note on Monday last in honor of the birthday of Washington and now hangs in the great city steeple irreparably cracked and dumb. It had been cracked before but was set in order that day...It gave out clear notes and loud, and appeared to be in excellent condition until noon, when it received a sort of compound fracture ...which put it completely out of tune and left it a mere wreck of what it was."
To me, that liberty bell is symbolic. I am reminded of a quote from Leonard Cohen's song "Anthem":
"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." I am praying for the light to get in there!
In a recent article in the Winnipeg Free Press entitled "Truth and trust: necessary but elusive"" John R. Wiens writes that "truth is essential for trust, and both are critical to democracy....it seems to me that real trust between people is impossible without a commitment to mutual respect and reciprocal truthfulness."
That is the ideal I hope for. We are humans and we are flawed and all of us have difficulty living up to the "ideals of truth and trust" but let us not be like the Liberty Bell, giving in to what is happening and remaining silent bystanders.
