A Trinity of Texts to Strengthen Our Moral Center
One is a Classic that Humbles Us While Educating Us
Because we live in the stupidest and most brutish timeline, the hack psychologist, exploiter-of-the-vulnerable-and-veterans and all-around putrid person Dr. Phil joined ICE agents in my Albany Park neighborhood to broadcast live ICE’s “enhanced targeted operations” that started Sunday. As I headed to my bus for work this morning, two ICE agents passed me as they headed to their car after leaving a home’s front porch. I’m guessing the people who lived there did not answer the door. If the ICE agents had approached me and asked me questions, I would have answered, “I will not comply” and kept walking toward my bus stop. I have better and more important things to do.
We now live in a clown-car dystopia because half of the United States consists of stupid people and 90 million dipshits who stayed home instead of voting on November 5. A loutish, vicious and subpar man who kept Hitler’s speeches “beside [his] bed” sits at its head. So many are obeying in advance. It is infuriating and dangerous.
Since November 5, I have thought a lot about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” I assigned it to my college writing classes when I taught part-time at DePaul University. Dr. King addressed just and unjust laws. We will see a lot more unjust laws in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. The majority of the Democratic party have proven feckless and not working as the opposition party the United States needs. Outside of AOC, there are no FDRs. No LBJs.
Our morality and ethics are being tested. They are being stressed. They are being strained. It’s easy to obey in advance out of fear and exhaustion.
But we the people cannot. We are what the Mump-Nazi Reich fear especially when we mock and laugh at them. Vice President Kamala Harris warned Inmate P01135809 would have no guardrails. She was wrong. We are the guardrails. Courage is contagious and being brave becomes easier when more people rebel and resist.
Again, I turn to literature to steady and teach me. Here are three books I am turning to now.
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
When Victor Frankl wrote his book, he originally wanted it to be anonymous. He only did so after giving in to friends who urged him to put his name on his now classic text. Dividing his book into two parts — “Experiences in a Concentration Camp” and “Logotherapy in a Nutshell,” Frankl uses his horrific Holocaust experience in concentration camps to support his psychological theory of “logotherapy.”
This therapeutic approach helps people find meaning in their lives by teaching them how to find meaning in pain and suffering while focusing on the future, accepting that life is unfair, focusing on others and creation. All these aid us in finding meaning to our individual lives whether that is through work, courage when life becomes difficult or perhaps the most powerful meaning — love.
How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith by Mariann Edgar Budde
Bishop Budde opens her book with her criticism of Inmate P01135809 holding a Bible in front of Washington D.C.’s Saint John’s Episcopal Church for a photo-op after law enforcement clashed with peaceful George Floyd protesters. She then divides her book on various ways and situations on being brave even when it may seem to us that we are not.
Using her own life experiences and skilled narration in addition to examples from the Judeo-Christian Bible, secular literature and wisdom from a variety of diverse Christian theologians, Budde opens her readers eyes to recognize that even a small action can be brave.
Moral Wisdom: Lessons and Texts from the Catholic Tradition by James F. Keenan, SJ
I read Moral Wisdom when I joined a book club at Saint Peter’s in the Loop in the early 2000s. Though book’s audience is Catholic, anyone from any faith or no faith can benefit from the lessons Father Keenan provides.
Keenan draws from real-life examples like the Nazi architect and minister of armaments Albert Speer along with secular literature and sacred texts to demonstrate ways we make or ignore moral decisions and choices. Along with providing practical ways we can do so, Moral Wisdom’s new edition includes lessons from Pope Francis and the latest scholarship on Jesus’s teachings and The Ten Commandments.
But wait. There's more.
1.) Bust a move with me on Bluesky and Spoutible.
2.) Donate to The Carter Center.
3.) Paid supporters can leave a comment below. If you like what you read, please consider becoming a paid supporter. All paid support goes toward my daughter’s post-high-school education.
4.) I read Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America after his novel arrived in 2004 and watched the HBO limited series adaptation in 2020. I know the scene below from the HBO series, which people can watch on Max, will play out with a lot of family and friends who voted for the convicted felon and the adjudicated rapist once Hell’s swirling flames their vote unleashed incinerates the country, them, their friends and their family.
Indeed. Evelyn is a stupid person.
5.) Join Malcolm Nance’s FAFO — Focused Action, Focused Objectives— opposition movement and subscribe to his Substack Special Intelligence as a free or paid supporter.
6.) Listen to an inspirational and galvanizing song from Tom Petty the way it is meant be sung.