Every Sunday morning I read the New York Times, eager for a more detailed update on events taking place around the world than provided by the woefully abridged Chicago Tribune. Lately it’s become an increasingly unsettling custom as story after story describe horrific events taking place in every corner of the world. This past Sunday the news seemed worse than ever, leaving me with a throbbing headache and a deep-rooted pessimism. I read stories about a hundred innocent people slaughtered in the Congo by a group calling themselves the Lords Liberators; the murder rate in Chicago at new highs; bombs exploding in Afghanistan, floods on a rampage in Tennessee killing several and destroying whole city blocks; a terrorist bomb scare in Times Square; an oil slick the size of Delaware engulfing the coast of Louisiana; continued unrest in the middle east; disgustingly blatant racism evident in the Arizona immigration bill; more contemptible lies spewed by immoral talk show hosts,,, and I had not yet opened the Business Section with its accounts of greed and borderline criminality on a unprecedented scale.
No wonder my head was aching when I tossed aside the paper and stiffly rose to my feet. There appeared to be a common thread to the stories, the massacres, murders, suicide bombings, congressional gridlock, Tea Party lunacies, celebrity debauchery, even the ravages of nature could be traced to an incipient Us versus Them bunker mentality. People were fighting to keep their identities, striking out violently to avoid being absorbed into a One World community. It occurred to me that the technological advances shrinking the world were scaring people into retreating into smaller and smaller like-minded groups – sects, clans, tribes, NRA clubs, Roe v Wade protesters, neighborhood gangs – identities they believed would keep them from irrelevancy. And inversely, as comfort levels shrink, the extent of fear-based fundamentalism expands. If left unchecked I could see the gathering momentum leading to increasingly isolated, ideologically entrenched groups intolerant of any religious, political or philosophical viewpoint varying with their own.
The warm temperatures and unseasonably bright sunlight drew me outdoors. It was a glorious day. Within sight of my bedroom window I saw a nest built by a pair of crows. Two babies, their beaks opened wide, cheeped loudly calling for mama to feed them. Crossing the street and entering the park I watched a father and his young son launch a homemade kite into the wind. The trees lining the walkways were budding, millions of bright green Q-tips ready to burst open. I walked along the lakefront, doffing my sweater and rolling up my sleeves. The marina, empty a week ago, already was half filled with sailboats bobbing in the gentle swells. The whimsical Frank Geary designed bridge that connects Millennium Park to the lakefront was open to pedestrians, wide-eyed at the architect’s avant garde music pavilion opening out to the great lawn, the soaring stainless steel sails surrounding the presidium arch spread like angel’s wings. Blankets blossomed on the lawn itself, families enjoying picnics, the languages of Chicago’s stew pot, Polish, Spanish, Asian, Pakistani, a dozen dialects harmonizing. I grinned at a little girl in pigtails swinging on her mother’s arms; she smiled back. I noticed that my headache was gone. I felt positively jaunty.
