I Pledge Allegiance to the Fantasy of America

I pledge allegiance to my integrity, when my mind is not clogged.

I pledge allegiance to love my children with all the integrity I can muster. My devotion to them, thank the heavens, surpasses my selfish needs and desires and jealousies and the more anxious needs to have them near. I know they have to fly and in ways they are not that far away.

I pledge allegiance to listening to the people most important to me who have stopped wanting to pledge absolute allegiance to anything or anyone, because one must have the right and even obligation to make judgments according to the truth of what is or what seems to be.

I hope there is a movement in this country that moves us towards more freedom of mind and spirit and the willingness to accept our connection to all manner of feelings, all shades and nuances of love and hate and indifference. I hope that we will accept the less than pretty sides of ourselves a bit at a time, so we don't have to be blind and closed and deaf when we confront the people who shall lead or be important in our lives--so we can see the whole of them and not just the parts that appeal or that scare us.

I hope that some people in the coming election will look for harder facts and softer hearts.

The music in the background is piano by Enaudi, an Italian composer and it is without the harsh edges that cover our political atmosphere of distraction and the appearance of pledging when there is not enough integrity with which to pledge.

I hope we are in time and I end this one with a quote from a familiar Jewish joke.."Three men sit at a cafe in Tel Aviv and one declares: 'I'm a pessimist.' The second seconds the emotion and the third declares:'I'm an optimist'. One of the other avowed pessimists asks, 'So tell me if you're an optimist why do you look so worried?' The man answers:
'YOU THINK IT'S EASY TO BE AN OPTIMIST???????????'"