Lost and Found?

Eureka! I finally found this photo of me and my husband Bill with Walter and Betsy Cronkite

Eureka!…I found it! I found the lost, cherished photograph I recently wrote about in my encounters with the late broadcast legend Walter Cronkite (And that’s the way it was, The Gate, July 19, 2009).

Well, that’s not quite true…I didn’t actually find the photo, per se; but I did find someone who sent me another copy. No doubt the original will show up at any moment, after all the effort I put into locating it. As soon as I quit looking, it will probably reappear. It will step out of its flat little hiding place, probably somewhere right in my sightline or someplace I’ve already looked, announce “Here I am!”, then be heartbroken to learn that it has already been replaced by a copy of someone else’s little photo, this one a fancier, newer, digital version. 

The experience of losing and finding things is so much a part of my life these days. Certainly others must have the same experience. But as I tend to do with most things nowadays, I see a philosophical connection to a larger perspective on our world. In this instance, the frequent experience of misplacing and searching for something every day, brings to mind the state of our country these days.

We are the most successful democracy in the world. What’s gone wrong? What have we lost?

There is something that we dearly care about, it’s important to everybody, but we have misplaced it somewhere and we don’t seem to be able to put our hands on it. Without this special thing, something is missing in our lives. Each day that we cannot find it nags at us more than the last. Like an amputated limb, we can feel the missing entity more acutely in its absence. Our discomfort grows daily; the pain gnaws at our senses until they are rubbed red and raw. Everywhere we look, people have begun to act strangely, and it’s frightening. It’s not just my imagination that rudeness, violent talk, public gun toting and hate speech have become more frequent.

What have we lost? Where can we find it? What is this lost object? It is, simply, respect for our fellow citizens, even for people with whom we don’t agree. Respect is the key ingredient that makes our American brand of democracy so effective. Without it, we are not the same. Without respect, we degenerate into name calling, us-vs-them selfishness, paper-thin egotism, reflexive defensiveness and offensive, attacking activism. 

Let’s put an end to this situation. Let’s all ask around for a friend who’s got the original document, so that we can quickly get back on the road to wholeness and healthy, civil behavior. What are we looking for? It’s called the Constitution of the United States. This document contains instructions for ensuring respect among the citizenry and its governmental branches. Heck, even if we don’t have access to the original, due to its fragility and need for museum preservation, there exist many digital versions which will serve us just as well. It’s time we found our original bearings as a society again.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…”

This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle online edition, The Gate, July 19, 2009