http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/darknight.html

Dark Night
Margaret Wheatley © 2003

My nation now knows more about waging war than it does about anything else.
We know what can be done with different guns, missiles, fighter planes, even
the nicknames given to aircraft carriers. Retired military officers, now TV
stars, have explained the details of battle strategy, demonstrated every
weapon in America's arsenal, paraded soldiers on morning TV wearing the
newest battle technology.

I remember listening to a pilot excitedly describe his night vision goggles,
how he could see where his bombs landed. When the bombs hit, we saw only
plumes of fire and shattered buildings floating eerily in the air, but this
pilot saw the destruction in detail. I remember using those same night
vision goggles. I was working for the Army Chief of Staff in 1993-94,
supporting his efforts to create a military that could respond to this
troubled world. It was dark night, and I was riding in a Hummer through the
Army's desert center for tank training. We rode in total blackout, not a
light anywhere, goggles on. At one point, I thoughtlessly raised my head and
looked up. Instantly, the stars we can't see were glowing in my eyes.
(Astronomers estimate that there are at least 50 million stars behind each
one we can see.) I have never forgotten that rapturous glimpse into the
universe provided by military technology. Nor the paradox.

I experience this as a dark time for America, where we have lost our way. I
search to find the means for us to see clearly through the darkness. I want
us to be able to see both the destruction, and the stars. I felt this even
before we chose war, for more fundamental reasons. In the past several
years, America has embraced values that cannot create a sustainable society
and world. Presently, we organize our activities around beliefs that are
inherently life-destroying. We believe that growth can be endless, that
competition creates healthy relationships, that consumption need have no
limits, that meaning is found in things, that aggression brings peace.
Societies that use these values end up, as do all voracious predators in
nature, dead.

I know that most Americans would be shocked at this list of national values,
but I see them clearly in our behaviors and the choices we make. I also know
that this is not who we want to be, so how did we get here? What happened to
our ideals about life, liberty, democracy, independence, imagination?

This devolution frequently happens to individuals, organizations, and
nations. It's a gradual and nearly invisible process where values quite
contrary to those we treasure seep in and grow in power. As these contrary
values are used in more and more decisions, higher principles recede into
the background and have little influence. We may still think they matter,
but they aren't guiding our behavior. Usually, it takes a crisis and deep
distress for us to look honestly at ourselves and notice who we've become.

I feel that America is standing on the edge of an abyss, a dark night of the
soul. In a dark night, meaning is lost, identity disintegrates, and we move
into that most creative of spaces, chaos. W.B.Yeats powerfully describes a
dark night in "The Second Coming."
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world;
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

There is only one way through a dark night, and that is by illuminating the
truth of who we are, surfacing the grief and regret we feel, and then
reclaiming those values and principles that would bring us back to life. We
need to walk willingly into the abyss, peering through the darkness to find
those values, that identity, that holds its own luminosity. As we reclaim
our ideals, we find the way forward, the path illuminated by our refound
clarity about who we want to be.

I want to see Americans, and those who care about America, in conversation
about the values and behaviors that would restore America to her intended
character and original founding principles. I regard the recent spate of
books about the Founding Fathers, John Adams, the Constitutional Congress
and the American Revolution, as evidence that America wants to be in this
exploration. Even as I've been writing this, PBS is airing "Freedom: A
History of US," while also advertising Walter Cronkite's upcoming series
"Avoiding Armageddon." How much longer will we wait to talk about these deep
and troubling issues?

I've begun to invite the people I meet into conversation by asking: "What is
it that you love about America? What things must be protected at all costs?"
This question leads to wonderful explorations. People are energized to talk
about what they love, what it means to live here as an immigrant, what
they've learned about freedom, imagination, the human spirit, creativity,
democracy. Even if these ideals are receding from our day-to-day experience,
we realize how important it is to claim them as our own.

However, I'm also learning that it's very difficult to look truthfully at
these times. It's painful to acknowledge that these ideals are no longer
vibrant, that, in fact, they are disappearing. It's even more difficult to
acknowledge that we must stand up and do something if we are to prevent
further deterioration. It takes patience and trust in one another before we
dare venture into the darkness.

I have no idea if America will acknowledge this dark night that feels so
obvious to me. I can only hope some of us will be brave enough to ask, "What
do I love about America that I want to preserve at all costs?" This question
takes us into deep territory, revealing the qualities of life and human
community that truly inspire us. And our connection to each other
strengthens as we dwell in this life-affirming space. I always leave these
conversations reenergized, stronger, bolder.

At a personal level, I fear waking one morning from this awful trance that
has dulled my imagination and heart, and wonder what happened to the energy
and ideals I once had as an American. In his poem, "The Truly Great,"
British poet Stephen Spender warned that we must: "Never to allow gradually
the traffic to smother with noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit."
Sacred values erode so slowly, lost to our awareness through subtle,
darkening forces. I hope we can find the means to see through this dark
night.


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"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator." - GW Bush 12/18/2000.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

"Feels Good!"
---George W. Bush on the Brink of Declaring War on Iraq.