USS Constitution underway off Castle Island for the 200th anniversary of her victory over HMS Guerriere, August 19, 2012. Wikipedia.
I often turn to Emily Dickinson’s poems in troubled times. Friday I came across one of her more startling aphorisms:
“A bomb upon the ceiling
Is an improving thing —
It keeps the nerves progressive.”
Without worrying too much about how a bomb would get upon the ceiling, I’m taking from Dickinson’s words the thought that upheaval, no matter how unexpected and frightening, does “keep the nerves progressive.”
To me, this means that adjusting to and accommodating disruption prevents us from falling more deeply into our familiar attitudes. No matter how we label them—left/right, right/wrong—they solidify over time and close out new impressions and new thinking. If we can pick out positive threads in all our challenges, we may find, to our surprise, that the challenges facing us bring unexpected rewards.
I’m trying to take my own advice, which I often avoid and forget. First off, I’m now going to treat the next president as his office, if not his personality or his politics deserve. From now on, he is for me “Mr. President.” There’s alchemy in honorifics as he will certainly experience with all the pomp and circumstance of his inauguration. I know some of us have seen how noisy two-year-olds become quiet when they are in a solemn place or occasion, church, public gathering, or impressive museum. The same might be expected of the incoming president.
And then we are facing the trials and tribulations of our Congress in Washington as they deal with what President Biden recently called the next president’s “rushed decisions” on his cabinet. Of course to some they will seem not rushed, but right—or rushed, but still right. But there are people in both Houses who are people of principle, including many women, and seeing how they thread this needle in confirming the president’s choices will be at least interesting and even possibly inspiring.
As I was reminded this morning when listening to my favorite NPR program, CounterSpin, we have as a nation been challenged before. During the McCarthy era, when Senator Joseph McCarthy was able to destroy reputations and lives through his successful raids against imaginary “Commies,” we did eventually, although far too late, right ourselves, and the raids ended.
We are going to pass through troubled waters, as in that time, but the worthy old boat of the U.S. Constitution, with all its leaking holes, will survive and sail on with us aboard.
These are the Nights that Beetles love
By Emily Dickinson
“These are the Nights that Beetles love —
From Eminence remote
Drives ponderous perpendicular
His figure intimate
The terror of the Children
The merriment of men
Depositing his Thunder
He hoists abroad again —
A Bomb upon the Ceiling
Is an improving thing —
It keeps the nerves progressive
Conjecture flourishing —
Too dear the Summer evening
Without discreet alarm —
Supplied by Entomology
With its remaining charm –“
Life is more interesting if I have an open mind.
I hear there’s a game you actually try to figure out how to hit the bomb up into the ceiling to progress.