My mood, my internal weather is as somber as the morning sky.  The news from Ukraine is of widespread shelling of neighborhoods, of a mother wounded by shrapnel in the face, as she covers her child to protect it from death in the air.  There is news of thousands of civilians removed from Mariupol, allegedly upon their request, for transportation to Russia.  The practice of forcible deportation is evocative of the accounts of ancient warfare, seemingly surreal.   Stories about entire populations transported from their homeland to demoralize, to drive home the point that continued resistance would be hopeless.  Why resist if there’s no longer a home to fight for?  The Romans did that to Dacia when the area now constituted by Romania, Hungary, and Serbia was conquered by Trajan in AD 98–117.  Crito wrote that approximately 500,000 Dacians were enslaved and deported.

I don’t suppose all of those stories come from a time so ancient and unenlightened, a time untouched by the rights-of-man, the sacrosanct status of every human being.  But wait ! Now I remember.  Our ancestors from Europe behaved in precisely that manner toward the indigenous inhabitants of the Appalachian mountains.  The Cherokee Trail of Tears deportation to Oklahoma.  I doubt that aspect of our history is explored in our schools…  Fifteen thousand died during that “relocation.”

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I felt shame while viewing a few minutes of the video documenting the examination hearing of Judge Katanji Brown Jackson who is nominated for appointment to the Supreme Court.  The grilling by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina was nothing other than a verbal assault.  The candidate was repeatedly, aggressively demanded to give an account of actions and words of which she had not practiced, or advocated in her past as a judge.  How does one prove a negative?  I guess that was the point.  She was guilty of being a black woman.  Make no mistake lynching has not gone out of style.

Cruz, Hawley, and Graham conducted themselves as the spiritual descendants of Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the slave-trader turned Confederate and guerrilla raider in our Civil War.  I imagined that Forrest would have been proud should he have lived in our time.

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What tune is at hand, something that we are able to hold onto, something to nurture our fellow-feeling, our regard for Homo Sapiens, for all of us who share this earth?  This one!  Let It Be covered by John Legend and Alicia Keys.

Let It Be

By John Legend and Alicia Keys

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let it be

And when the broken-hearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer
Let it be

For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer
Let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Yeah, there will be an answer
Let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let it be

And when the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me
Shine until tomorrow
Let it be

I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
There will be an answer
Let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
There will be an answer
Let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let it be

Lyrics by Paul McCartney and John Lennon