In Good Company: THE GOOD SHIP RECOVERY

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

Every person on earth, all of us at the same time, had one great big heart attack a few months back. The day before, we cruised along seemingly smooth as butter. There were bubbles here and there—there were rancid spots—there were even warning signs that it had gone a bit too far to entrust it to our delicate system. But a snip here, and a snip there, and we got it gullet-passable—and we forced it down.

Sure, there were controversial, greedy, corrupt, and even wackadoo world leaders. One or three or five of them, each in his unique way, was little more than a playboy, ruled by treacherous infidelity to anything other than flashy narcissism. The world’s machinery ticked along, kicking up dust, but manageable dust—nothing of the nuclear bomb kind of debris. Whatever did shake out, the world skated through it, in spite of its clique of outrageous Good-Time Charlies.

America’s economy, which was rescued and resuscitated by the previous administration, showed up for the current administration, spit-shined and nattily dressed, and cannily rehearsed to make an outsized appearance—an economy that in the shadows was set to crumble on nearly every level under an existential crisis. But we were oblivious to all that deep economic mumbo-jumbo. We had people to handle that hard stuff for us. Wars were primarily provincial and less deadly than in previous centuries. So why not party on? On the surface, life chugged along pretty well for a good number of earth’s civilized hordes, and perhaps of those uncivilized, as far as anyone could tell. And then bam! In a freaking universal moment, it blew all to hell!

Sages throughout time, as well as clued-up critical thinkers among us, teach us that solutions are not found at the level of the problem. Finding a solution requires digging deep, tunneling below the hoarded mess, and clearing away obstacles to wholesomeness—to the cleansing light. Anyone who has experienced a heart attack in his/her own person has learned that hard lesson. Healing requires the guidance of an brilliant cardiologist, and a big change of lifestyle, involving downsizing and simplifying, oftener than not. Wise alterations are key.

There is a graphic story of this truism in the Jewish tradition. As the story goes, a Jewish trader on his way to market, seated atop his horse-drawn and grossly overloaded cart, hits impassable ruts and potholes in the road. His cart threatens to topple over and spill its contents under its excessive weight. He rationalizes that he cannot afford to unload even one parcel to make his cart road-worthy. And to lighten the load, he makes the fatal decision to remove the wheels of his cart. It seems to me that America’s wheels have been yanked from beneath her, an inexplicable, shameful, and suspect response to one of the worst cataclysms ever to take place within her shores.

We squeaked by for the finger-in-the-dyke years spanning January 2017 to March 2020. It would have been pretty easy to float through for almost any leader then, whether or not that person met the required level of quality for the position. But the good times are over, and in this deadly serious time of coronavirus and its titanic fallout, there is a crucial need for the highest degree of leader—a deadly serious, inspirational, and skillful leader as close as we can get to the caliber of Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt. Chorus upon chorus of weary and frightened voices call out for such a person, a person who knows in his/her spirit that “to begin a reform, go not into the places of the great and rich; go rather to those whose cups of happiness are empty—to the poor and humble.”[1] Chorus upon chorus of citizens call out for a wise leader who talks to the stars and follows them to the helm of the Good Ship Recovery, a person who will be beneficial to the world and in no way hurtful.©

Image: SHIP OF RECOVERY, watercolor by Linda Lee Greene

#Recovery, #Coronavirus, #Covid-19, #Abraham Lincoln, #Franklin D. Roosevelt, #Americana, #Linda Lee Greene

The years of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt served as a backdrop of the story in #multi-award-winning artist and author Linda Lee Greene’s, #GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS. A reviewer describes it as “a seamless blend of fact and fiction that spans the early to mid-twentieth century, including transcriptions of actual letters written by members of two American families. It is an unputdownable 5 Star read.”

Purchase Link of GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS: http://goo.gl/imUwKO