Lincoln’s Tomb

Last Monday, on my move back to Kansas City, I stopped in Springfield, Illinois to pay a visit at the Lincoln Tomb. It's one such monument that I've visited a handful of times before, but never before this time have I been alone with the Lincolns in the building. We are at a moment in our history when things seem to rhyme with Lincoln's day, when we Americans are divided against one another to such an extreme not seen in these last 160 years. Lincoln has always been a sort of patron saint for me in our American civic religion, someone who I looked up to as a boy in the Chicago suburbs over twenty years ago. And, so in this visit I found myself asking him to guide our leaders today, to offer them wisdom to "bind up the nation's wounds" as he endeavored to do.

In a day as now when the loudest voices nearly drown out all the rest in our public discourse, we need more quiet people, like Lincoln, to step up and speak out. I have tried in my own way both in public and in the Wednesday Blog to do this but have felt inadequate to the task and unheard by society at large. I worry today that we have lost sight of the need for balance in our lives, a drive for excess, loud colors, and garish noise contributing to the cacophony which makes maintaining our great society more difficult with each passing day. We ought to remember the common humanity that binds us together and "confidently hope that all will yet be well."

Oh Lord, teach us the wisdom to listen to one another.

Seán is a Ph.D. Candidate in History.