I just read an article by Finton O’Toole in the Irish Times in which he put on the table what I call a “hunkering down” dimension of politics.  He portrays a political impasse underway in his corner of the world in which diametrically-opposites are “duking it out” on the world stage.  This can best be described as an “us vs them” moment in which one side says to the other, “I got it…and you don’t.” This is the story of Adam and Eve writ large, two voices speaking a primordial word that still reverberates through our world today, two lonely little souls demanding supremacy. Yes, Eve lost that initial skirmish….but not really as “She” is screaming at us today as our political machinery and socio-cultural are being shaken. This is the Feminine dimension Life.

So much “hunkering down” is taking place around our world. People are dug in so deeply to their ideology that they can’t offer even a miniscule of respect to those who have “different” ideas.  “I’ve got it, and you don’t,” they quietly say to themselves.  There is no escape from this predicament unless a bolt of lightning takes place and we are capable of the humility of seeing our arrogance. TS. Eliot summed this up in The Four Quartets:

Do not let me hear

Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,

Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,

Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire

Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.”