Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Finding and Losing The American Soul-A Tribute and a Tribulation



Recently, during a personal writing retreat in Colorado, I was involved in a group book reviews event. (To each his/her own choice.)  I presented a book that I am currently inching through fervently, riveted by the thesis, knowing it is a pivotal theme for any resolution of our national crisis. And yes, we are in a crisis.


The book: The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders by Jacob Needleman.  It has garnered increasing acceptance and acclaim since publication in 2002. At that pivotal moment, barely post-9/11, he saw, with extraordinary clarity,  the state of our disunion. Wiser minds than mine have churned through Needleman's tight and elastic  (both, paradoxically) explorations and summations, and said "YES!"

His theme? It could be multi-labeled, for all his applications and intimations, but Needleman basically assert s that our nation has  lost an incalculable gift of national and international particularity in a world that needed—and heeded—our unique and God-given/driven view of nationhood . . . and that we can only recover it by heading back to the creation of this great primal experiment in governing. For its primal wisdom. By revisiting our founding fathers—applying to the pursuit a soul-set we've never really attained before—we  identify who and what each had become as a person at that historical "moment."

We finally comprehend what they agonized over individually, thrashed out together and, finally, contracted, that created "the greatest nation in history." We are invited into a startling frame of reference on both character-building and nation-building. We are offered a "dynamic" that is historic in its integrity and diametrically alien to our present fragmenting life as a national and world entity.

Also intricately woven into Needleman's chain of premises—as equally indispensable, and perhaps even more stirring—is the compelling life witness of Abraham Lincoln. A breakthrough concept of our evolving history would be impoverished, incomplete, without this remarkable man at the helm during a pivot point in history.  In a meditation on this president, the author describes, with a depth that can only be called visionary, the impact upon him of the photos of Lincoln. And because Abe is the "continuity" that was requisite to our survival as a nation, he is shouldered firmly into the pantheon of heretofore  idealized non-idols who conceived the original "American dream."

The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders is a masterpiece of historical weaving, unraveling, reweaving. Ergo, my gratitude for a landing place for my constant, gnawing concern for this nation, and the stunning relief I experienced in finding a rationale for this concern. Here I found a practical and prophetic analysis of what we have lost . . . and what we must admit to—and grieve for. And yearn to discern in order to become once again, to survive and thrive as a people.

1 comment:

  1. Yes Judith, a very interesting commentary on the condition of our nation. May I speak out of my experience. If we believe that the foundation of our nation is borne out of a spiritual thrust and that based in the belief of the true and living God who manifested Himself in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, who left upon His ressurection, a church to manifest His will in our nation than the onus is on the church. The truth of the matter is the church has let down on it's call and purpose and thus our nation has lost its noble purpose among nations. The transformation must be in the church. We must return to our first love!

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