The spirit of America.

April 5, Malvern.

Two anonymous comments on "The incredible story of Brian's burn" had me spinning last night (we had no internet until yesterday.) Both wrote about my criticizing the American health care, the first ordering me to "go back to France" and the second saying that nothing was free.
Whoever wrote the second comment is right: the health care issue had no place in that post. This was Brian's story and Brian's story only, and it was disrespectful to Brian to have mixed it in there (I have changed the post accordingly.) Brian's story is the story of an incredible twist of fate, but also of grace, guts and resilience, a very American way of dealing with life's tough cards.
This is a country that I have loved passionately for over twenty years, warts and all. And in the end this is what this blog is about, this passion for America, the circus just a piece of the whole, the American people, the American landscape. I want to be Walt Whitman and sing its song, sing the mountain ranges and the California woods, the plains of Kansas and the pulse of New York, I want to be Faulkner and delve into the soul and the depths of the South, I want to be Jim Harrison and meander through the Western wilderness, I want to be Mark Twain and travel down the Mississippi, I want to be Walker Evans and celebrate the beauty of those left behind, Richard Avedon and paint the many faces of this land I have called home for half my life, and that I carry around wherever I am like a double skin, a country that elected Barack Obama, a nation I among many admire for the indomitable vitality that defines it and the courage it offers in adversity, but that one should never cease to challenge for its shortcomings, for that would be a disservice to its very spirit.
And health care is such an essential issue that it deserves all the debate we can give it.
No, there is no such thing as a free lunch (that great American expression,) and I certainly never suggested health care systems in other countries, France or otherwise, were free. The French system is paid for mainly through income taxes, which are lower for lower incomes but higher for higher incomes than in the US. Each country's system is very different from the other and all have many flaws, but each and everyone of them has in common that everyone is covered at a much lower overall cost than in the US. So it is mind-boggling for me, not to mention intensely frightening now that I have children, that this amazing country, one of the richest countries in the world, in both natural and human resources, is so incredibly behind on this issue, with millions uninsured and badly managed, skyrocketing costs. President Obama's bill was drained down to just a small step but it is nevertheless an important one, and I can only hope that it is only the beginning.
The second anonymous person went on to regret my "constant jabs at Christianity," and here I am left utterly baffled.
Never have I made a secret that I am an agnostic and have never believed in any gods, but neither have I ever intended to disparage Christianity or any other religions; they fascinate me, and inspire me with a deep respect. This sense of the numinous, from the Latin numina, or spirits, the foundation of all religions, this need of humanity from the beginning of times to find the source of their wonder, has always held a strong hold on my searching, doubting mind. So the comment had me almost sleepless last night trying to figure out where I would even have mentioned Christianity; all I could find was an entry two years ago on the Fourth of July about my kids having to recite the pledge of allegiance, and say "so help me god," an issue on which I have come to a change of mind since.
So coming out of hiding would be courteous but also useful: I could take a good nap, and then we could have an open, raucous, gutsy debate - the American way.