Healing our nation’s wounded soul in Daydreaming on the Porch

In light of the events of January 6 and the four nightmarish, dystopian years which preceded and directly led up to that horrific and shameful day in our history, I have read and re-read these two quotes. They express in a few short words what might take me pages to write, out of anger and despair, but also out of hope. In Marianne Williamson’s words, I read about that hope from a sane and clear voice crying out in the wilderness for us to listen.

President Donald Trump is leaving America in a vortex of violence, sickness and death and more internally estranged than it has been for 150 years.

Steven Collinson

…To say our nation’s soul needs healing is absolutely true, but it’s not going to happen without a deeper understanding of what it means. The reason our nation’s soul is sick is because it hasn’t been healthy for a while. America doesn’t just have a pandemic, a broken economy or a tyrannical president to [have dealt with]. We have a collective mental health issue that is hiding in plain sight....

Only when we decide as a society to actively align our policies with the tenets of a healthy soul—putting kindness, love, mercy and compassion over cutthroat attitudes that put glorification of self over a commitment to the love that binds us as one, not only in our private behavior but in our political and economic behavior as well—will our wounded soul begin to heal itself…

Marianne Williamson

Last updated January 19, 2021