The Mystic Chords

On many a spring or fall morn or afternoon back decades ago as a youth, I used to cut through this road to and from what was once my local Elementary school.

As the years and decades have rolled on, as life has moved, occurred, danced, collapsed, sang, cried, and simply passed with all of its both picayune events and joys, its humorous moments and its pathos alike, I had not been back along this this old road.

Until this morning.

Why not go back ? I knew where the road once led, and would likely lead again.

It inspired in me Lincoln’s epic phrase” …the mystic chords of memory” that he spoke of in his second Inaugural Address. What Lincoln meant then by this phrase---which he did not invent, but surely has enshrined within one of the most lyrical and important speeches in history---is that there were unifying, universal chords of collected, shared community memory.

In Lincoln’s time that he delivered this address , it was one month short of the end of the epic, brutal civil war that rent our nation. Lincoln knew then, and of course only to have the wounds still remain today, that despite shared national memories, huge, deep, lasting divisions exist between Americans.

Let Lincoln’s words and this simple trip by me down a long-long-ago travelled road inspire this thought: Be us Trumpsters or Opponents, Red Staters of Blue Staters, Liberals or Conservatives, Capitalists or Socialists, Gentile or Jew, and all other faiths, races, creeds, colors, and orientation: we have our differences. We live in our own ‘ silos’, watching cable channels that reinforce our agreements. Yet, we share: the “mystic chords of memory” as a country.

HAPPY LABOR DAY, LINKEDINers.