The Moral Imperative

Yesterday my partner and I watched Bill Moyers interview Chris Hedges. For those of you who don’t know, Hedges is a journalist who wrote for the New York Times for years, covering wars in Africa and Bosnia, and famine and poverty worldwide. When he told the truth of what he saw, and that truth became more and more disturbing to the journalistic powers that be, he refused to bow to the pressure to ‘back off’ and eventually left the Times. A few months ago he was arrested with several other Occupy protestors in front of Goldman Sachs. Moyers and Hedges talked about the arrest, the role of journalists, and finally, the role of a moral person in a time of turmoil and tragedy for the majority of the world’s population. How do you remain silent when thousands of people are being forced out of their homes, a high percentage of American children (to say nothing of children worldwide) are going hungry, our coral reefs are disintegrating beneath our warming waters: just typing the disasters of our time gives me a knot in my chest. Hedges said he chooses to write on the subjects he does, to cover the events he covers, and to sit down on the sidewalk in front of that corporation knowing he will be arrested because it feels like a moral imperative. If he is going to look at himself in the mirror and like the man he sees there, he has to keep telling the truth as he sees it, and to tell it again and again if necessary. Which it certainly seems to be these days. ‘If so much of what you see is so grim, how could you and your wife choose to have your fourth child,’ Moyers asked him. Hedges said he had no simple answer, except that he also needs hope. His children keep him on his path, because even if he could’t keep on keeping on for himself, he has to do so for them. He has to try to turn this nation around because he owes it to the next generation, and in personal terms, he owes it to his children. As I age, what seems to be happening for me is that I feel the need to tell my personal truth as well, if not just for my own growth as a human being, but because I truly believe that meaningful change begins at home, in the way we choose to behave. So this morning Wonono and i held one another, breathing in the love we share with one another and found later in life, before he left for work, and I write this blog before I hit the road to see my daughters in Portland. One of them lives there with her husband and her two wonderful, lively, life-filled little boys, and the other is driving three hours to be with us for a few days. I want to draw them all close, and feel the warmth of our love for one another. More and more that matters to me these days deep in the core of my being. Hedges is right: we need hope. Knowing I can love and be loved goes a long way to giving me that, in a time that often seems quite grim. The laughter of my grandsons will brings me back to the power of life and the need to keep fighting for what matters.