Lane von Herzen: The Soul of a Nation

My Third Novel's Conclusion, My Heartbreak

My heart begins to break when I think about completing this particular book -- because this narrative has sustained me like no other story I've known. It's both more personal and more universal than my other works. But beyond memory and archetype, it's a cri-de-coeur about needing to become the person one is destined to be. And in the writing, I have met my own life's work, my own fated journey -- having the sense all the while that the pages are suffused with a resonance, an energy, an electrified field that defies explanation. Writers hope and pray to be overtaken by a work in this way -- to be conscripted into passionate service of a profound story. To experience it even once in a lifetime seems a great privilege. I still have several months before this novel is complete, and this constitutes my reprieve. Because I'm not ready for the beauty to end.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

The Soul of a Nation

OIG Hotline investigators, there are certain companies, agencies, and organizations which are expressing heightened sensitivity concerning their public exposure regarding recent events described on this blog.

I have been asked to "de-escalate" a conflict I neither sought nor initiated.

While the restraint required for that de-escalation is rather superhuman, I believe it represents the wise course at this time.

When the civil liberties and human rights of law-abiding American citizens have been violated by members of the far right in positions of authority, we must pause.

As law-abiding American citizens, we should not have to beg for our freedom, our careers, our property, our health, or our lives from a lawless cohort that has sought to forcibly deprive us of these gifts.

Our United States Constitution and our Bill of Rights grant us the guarantee that we will not have to do so.

And yet, covert predation by the far right has endangered this promise.

I risk stating the obvious when I assert that Americans should never turn against one another in the quest for a "greater nation." Germany made that mistake rather infamously in the 1930's and 1940's. There's no need for us to repeat it now.

Our strength resides in our diversity, our benevolence, our ethics, and in the human bonds that render our families, our communities, and our nation unified in our commitment to one another's well-being.

That fortitude is manifested within one American at a time: the teacher, the environmentalist, the physician, the engineer, the utilities worker, the hotel manager, the journalist, the scientist, the plumber, the artist.

Each one of us is an irreplaceable part in the fabric of the life of this nation.

Each one of us has the opportunity to extend help instead of harm, praise instead of slander, kindness instead of cruelty, truth instead of lies.

These choices define more than America's culture. They define America's soul.

When President Biden says that the struggle for the soul of this nation is underway, I am here to attest that I stand on the side of its virtues.

I possess abiding faith that those who care about the life of our democracy will stand alongside me.

In gratitude for your presence,