When Joe Biden was sworn in as our President last January, I felt such a sense of relief.  Hope had returned.  In his inauguration address, he voiced hope and optimism and avoided  denigrating his predecessor.  He demonstrated that he could see beyond the end of his nose, that “this is not about me” but about this wonderful nation that had given him this honor.  In his speech, he demonstrated a faint tic here and there in speech, reflecting the speech impediment that he struggled with as a child.  I think that this impediment was, and is, an essential part of his character as he had to struggle with it and learn to “rein in” that passion that led to this stuttering problem. (See afterthought, on the neurological dimension of this problem.)J

Joe, and I think he would appreciate that I call him “Joe,” is a good man and part of that goodness is that he is aware of his “not-so-good” qualities; and I think his Catholic faith is an essential dimension of this goodness.  His faith has instilled in him the value of life, not only his own but that of the entire nation and world. This helps him endure the “slings and arrows” that those who hate him toss his way daily.

The stuttering issue of his puts on my table the childhood fear of being “different”; in our early childhood, the fear of this “difference” is terrifying and we go to great effort to fit in and be allowed to “play in the reindeer games” that Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer felt excluded from.  But this need to “fit in” can be crippling and shred any potential for individuality, thereby selling one’s own soul.  But young Joe knew that he had a problem and deliberately addressed it, learning adaptations that would allow him to not stutter any more… more or less.  This courage allowed him to accept that he still, and always will, have a verbal slip here and there and he is ok nevertheless.  The core issue for him on that matter was accepting human frailty.  If someone in the Oval Office can not be humble enough to accept that, woe is country!

Here I must clarify my early insinuation that stuttering is not neurological.  It is neurological, as is everything about us, including this moment in my life when I am sitting here by an early-morning crackling fire, sipping coffee, Petey at my side, and delighted with this moment of Grace that I have been afforded. This Grace comforts me as I “gird up my loins” for another Autumn day in the beautiful High Desert of New Mexico.  Synapses are firing away “up there” up there in my head.  But this marvelous neurological dimension of human experience lends itself to poetry, giving us the poetry of Edgar Simmons who likened stuttering to the childhood predicament of having more to say than words can contain.  (Remember Cordelia’s response to her father, King Lear, who posed the question, ‘How much do you love me?’” His lovely young daughter responded, “More than words can wield the matter.”)  Biden has tremendous passion which has led verbally slip here and there and to stumble with words also.  Here is this compelling poem by Simmons:

BOW DOWN TO STUTTERERS

By Edgar Simmons

The stutter’s hesitation

Is a procrastination crackle,

Redress to hot force,

Flight from ancient flame.

The bow, the handclasp, the sign of the cross

Say, “Sh-sh-sheathe the savage sword.”

If there is greatness in sacrifice

Lay on me the blue stigmata of saints;

Let me not fly to kill in unthought.

Prufrock has been maligned

And Hamlet should have waived revenge,

Walked with Ophelia domestic corridors

Absorbing the tick, the bothersome twitch.

Let me stutter with the non-objective painters

Let my stars cool to bare lighted civilities.