Don't let yourself get caught up in the weeds.
That's not where salvation is found.
Ann: Good morning, John.
John McCain: Took you long enough. Geez, never had so much trouble getting through.
Ann: Yeah, I have been focusing getting stuff done around here.
John: What you mean is that you’ve been tending to business. And that’s important, Annie, but you can still talk to us, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Take Auntie (Harriet Tubman) for example, she saved a whole passel of people, marched for women’s suffrage, and still took care of elderly parents. It’s just the nature of the beast, living on the planet, we all have to tend to business no matter how exalted or mundane.
And right now there is a lot of the mundane dogging our heels back in my old shop. It may not look like it, but Joe is getting it done, but we gotta pass through a lotta doldrums as he and his crew get their ducks in a row.
Ann: Well, it sure doesn’t look like much is happening, his initiatives bogged down in Congress, not too many judges appointed and voting rights going down the tubes - not to mention the Justice Department letting its people pursue the Trumpite initiatives.
John: Annie, you are letting yourself get caught up in the weeds which, I’m here to tell you, is not where salvation is found. You gotta keep your eyes on where you’re going, and then even that business will take care of itself.
Auntie (Harriet Tubman): Oh, it’s messy alright, and they’s a lot of clean up that ain’t a lot of fun, but that’s what gots to happen befo’ the waters part, a lotta slogging - jes don’t look down while you doin’ it.
John: And you would know cause if anyone dug themselves out of a really deep trough it would be you.
My friends, we are in a pretty deep trough ourselves, and most of us didn't realize how far down it goes. We have just begun to scratch the surface, and there is still a lot of muck covering some of my erstwhile colleagues.
It will take a lot of slogging, tending to business, and dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" to clear away that mess, but when it happens, there will be no spin sharp enough to cover the stench that will arise from the ungodly actions that some of those boys have either undertaken or tacitly endorsed. Drip by drip by drip, we are coming for them. They can’t stop it now, and they are going down.
Robert Kennedy: Ann, we’ve been in worse spots and found our way out.
Auntie: This time we got to get clean away from them old ways that some folks wants to re-install jes so’s they can puff themselves up. This time we need to see the whole big picture so's we can set it to rights, and that don’t come easy.
John: But it comes. Auntie and Bobby, they can see it coming this time, and we on this side are doing our part from here to speed it along.
Auntie: That’s right, Johnnie boy. If everyone does their part, gives a push in the right direction, and slogs on through the bad times, bettah times will come.
Bobby: Hang on. That’s all, just hang on. We have found our vision, and now we are beginning to grasp the magnitude of what we have done to each other since the inception of this country. And because we can see, we will never again tolerate a return to a system where one race is set against another for the benefit of a privileged few.
Joe is going about it the right way. Slow, yes, but steady, clean, no stone unturned. An irresistible force and implacable will in a soft package but still relentless in focus and aim will bring this democracy back to the principles upon which it was founded. Nothing less will do this time.
John, Auntie, Bobby: Amen.
June 12, 2021
Image credit: Bull Riding, The Rodeo Cowboy, July 7, 2015 (Bull in photo is the famous "Taking Care Of Business."