Midlife Meditation

Unfortunately, it's actually "Yep." I thought I'd said all I needed to about how we're stuck with Donald Trump in the same way a public school teacher has no choice but to teach every student who comes through the classroom door: they're all my students, for as long as I'm at this school and they're attending it. I really thought that was a frame of reference I could apply to the unpleasantness of having this awful man become the leader of my country. Then I read that  Dylann Roof's mother had a heart attack at his trial. The name "Dylann Roof" may not immediately ring a bell, so here's a quick review: on June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof walked into the Emanuel AME Church of Charleston, South Carolina, to attend a Bible study. At the end of the gathering, as the participants stood to pray, he took out a gun and killed nine of them. He did so for one simple, powerful reason: to incite a race war. All the victims were Black, an...

From top to bottom: the Stars and Stripes, the South Carolina state flag, and the Confederate battle flag. The picture was taken in 2000, just before the battle flag was removed from the state capitol's flag pole. I struggle with flags. I learned flag reverence as a Boy Scout: how to present it, salute it, retire it, fold it and, when use had rendered it too tattered to respectfully display, how to burn it. The only proper way to wear the stars and stripes, I learned, was as a shoulder patch. To this day, seeing flags worn as articles of clothing troubles me. I'm aware that other cultures have different customs regarding their flags--the British, in particular, seem find with Union Jack underwear, hot pants, bikinis, etc.--but even so, seeing any flag displayed for purposes of ridicule, amusement, titillation, or symbolic disrespect gives me pause. I'm the same way with any symbol that has meaning to a group of people: seeing it desecrated troubles me. And yet,...