In the Dark Valley

In his Psalms, King David wrote, “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil … .” 

The world is in that dark valley now, and here in pitiable America, evil is indeed to be feared in the person of the President of this country. He is the President of the Shadows, whose daily actions – and inactions – are leading us deeper into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. 

He is the enabler of the overarching shadow that is the Covid 19 Pandemic. 

He is the ally of this mindless scourge; he has led America on its free fall from being a world leader in so much that was admirable and progressive to being the world leader in infection and death. We are looked on now as weak and failing by a world that a few short years ago saw us as a bulwark of freedom and truth, despite the deep and grievous faults and sins that lay beneath the calm-seeming surface we presented.

That surface has now been ripped and shredded and our bright and shining vistas have been darkened and dimmed by the many shadows that have been loosened upon us. And that we have loosened upon ourselves.  

The shadow of racism is no longer a mostly hidden and ignored shade, but has emerged for all the world to see and hear in the sorrowful plea “I can't breathe” by a Black man being murdered by a white police officer. That plea and the anger and disgust that it aroused in the angels of our better nature has brought the best of America to the streets in protest and support. 

And while these protests roil and test us, the shadow people who thrive on hate and prejudice have emerged in all their fully-armed ignorance, encouraged, supported, and admired by the chief executive of our land. Donald Trump takes pride in his Proud Boys even though one eight-man SEAL team would send a company of them running back to the rocks they crawled out from under. 

The shadow of selfishness and entitlement spreads over our land, as well, and adds to the sickness and death that are becoming so commonplace that we are in danger of accepting them as a way of life. While people – and especially young people – are endlessly protesting that Black lives do indeed matter, so many other young people are flocking to beaches and bars, maskless and brazen because of the maskless and brazen example that is being set by their president. 

The shadow of sickness and death means nothing to Donald Trump. He is willing to risk the lives and health of the children of America and the educators and support staff who will also suffer in his crazed demand that schools fully open. His threat to cut financial support for schools that won't open is moral and physical blackmail of the most cruel and evil kind. Nothing is beneath this monster.