“Sometimes you just have to be better than you actually are.” A football announcer said that tonight about a Green Bay player who made a good run even though it isn’t his job to carry the ball.

I more than liked what he said, I felt at home inside it. All my life I’ve sometimes been better than I actually am.

That’s a paradox: I am at the same time this, and also that. I am sometimes just plain old doubting yes-butting me and simultaneously the one who takes the higher road.

Paradoxicalness is a characteristic of The Divine. My personal experience of The Divine. And I’m not saying I’m divine, I’m saying that I sometimes see that this aspect of  The Divine has displayed through me.

My country, The United States of America, has historically been paradoxically better than we actually are. Often enough, we have. Somehow we have outdone our lesser natures, our primitive-brain natures shouting at us, “Them or us” or, “There won’t be enough” or, “Kill the weak, for they will weaken us!”. Or whatever. We have brought ourselves up in our laws and at least our outward behaviors, above the demands of the cells in our own brain stems, step by grinding step, sometimes bloody steps. Above slavery, women’s disenfranchisement, racial segregation, denial of some (some!) civil rights, the common acceptance of discrimination against minority populations, and the common regard of women’s bodies and souls as belonging to men.

To my eyes, The Divine has displayed Itself in The United States of America. We have come a long way, and we have a long way to go. I am not willing to give an inch to backwardness. We are better than that.

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