Tomorrow we close on the most rancorous, divisive and possibly consequential election since 1860. Some of us are fed up with slogans, rants and causes that leave us feeling empty, their meaning drained out by media saturation. No matter the outcome, we’re going to face tremendous post-election challenges.
We may face bitter division locally and nationally, even violence. The influence of elders will be critical to help temper absolutist passions and mend fractures in our common life. A second civil war looming? South Carolina poll shows nearly half the state thinks so.
Can elders do that? Temper passions and mend fractured communities? I use the word "elder" not meaning elderly people, who are just as prone to unbending opinions as anybody else and can be strident and grumpy. In fact we’re famous for it. But elders are those whose lives are rooted in deeper soil than politics and power, whose struggles have taught them how to bend without snapping, who have processed their life experience and found lasting connection with people they disagree with.
Those are defining marks of an elder at any age. One passage in Loren Eiseley’s autobiography "All the Strange Hours" is pertinent to our politics of partisan passion. Eiseley says this: “Sir Francis Bacon once spoke of those drawn into some powerful circle of thought as ‘dancing in little rings like persons bewitched.
’ Our scientific models do simulate a kind of fairy ring or magic circle which, once it has encompassed.