Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita):
(tame) hummed hopefully to others (1966)

Inscriptions and Marks
Signed: l.r.: Sister Mary Corita
(not assigned): Printed text reads: TAME [IT']S [NO]T / Somebody up there likes us. / A hum came suddenly into his head, which seemed to him a good hum such as is hummed hopefully to others. Pooh / Deep within every man there lies the dread of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the tremendous household of millions upon millions. That fear is kept away by looking upon all those about one who are bound to one as friends or family; but the dread is nevertheless there and one hardly dares think of what would happen to one if all the rest were taken away. Kierkegaard

"They are terrorists …"

The dream was back again last night. I do not recall the last time it visited, but it had not been so long ago that I wasn't familiar with the scene. We were driving through a hallucination. I'd lost my visual field, so when I looked out through the windshield, it looked to me like we were driving on a body of water. I knew there had to be a road there somewhere, and I suspected The Muse could see it, but I couldn't. There was also something about the music playing that seemed especially upsetting. We were in a precarious balance but at great risk of crashing. I woke up, but the dream persisted. It took an hour of sitting up in the dark for the vestiges of it to finally leave me, and even now, the memory persists.

I realize how exhausted I feel. I remain wary. I do not sleep deeply. I keep one eye open and am almost certain it's necessary. Even so, weird stuff keeps happening. Stuff without apparent strategic importance. Noise, but more unsettling than the usual clatter. I feel filled with dread. It's not paranoid dread, for I feel pursued, and I can tell you who's pursuing me, and you would agree with me that he's a clear and present danger to everything we both hold dear. He never was anybody's savior. Even those who supported his rise are already feeling Dreadfulled, too, a sense that they've been hoodwinked again, if only because they have been tricked again. He's an equal-opportunity dictator, decent to nobody, not even himself. He does not care. He cannot care. He dare not care.

I'm remembering now the sense that anyone might be my enemy. My neighbors might be plotting against me. Again, this was never unfounded paranoia but recognition that there were people, like him, who were incapable of caring. They'd lost their way. They had no vision for anything better, just the persistent delusion that they had somehow ended up worse off and that it was somebody else's fault. Many had been enlisted to hold and tend to somebody else's grudges, for a well-oiled machine produced grudges dating back into the Gilded Age and Reconstruction. There was this notion that one person's advancement would necessarily set another back. This was never true but it had always been communicable. Once infected with this fundamental lie, you'd undermine your own well-being, trying to get even.

Revenge is not sweet, especially as a repeat performance. It becomes a bitter reflection, a taste next to impossible to replace once it's swallowed. It hollows one out, creating an ever-expanding emptiness. Justice kneels in disgrace to it. Vengence always properly belongs to nobody else. The idea that what nurtures one does not, for some reason, nurture others seems absurd on the face of it. During Reconstruction, defeated Southerners opted to undermine their own society by safeguarding their own privilege. Everyone was poorer as a result. Encouraging equality might threaten some anemic egos, but it can't help but make society better for everybody. Reverse discrimination is primarily a perverse misrepresentation. It's jealousy and envy.

These are not Onward Christian Soldiers we're encountering but vestiges of long-ago rightfully lost causes. They do not in any way represent greatness somehow lost to modernity, but obscenity rightfully repeatedly vanquished and buried. Their objective can only ruin us all and will ruin us all should it ever achieve ascendency again. These are not saviors but men and men of profoundly flawed character. They are the criminals they rail against. They are terrorists, as exhibited by my Dreadfulled dreams.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld, #PureSchmaltz